With the passing of "Godfather" author Mario Puzo, is there a mediocre novelist alive who has been better served by the movie versions of his books than John Grisham? Other than the just-can't-buy-it "The Chamber," all the adaptations of Grisham's fanciful courtroom potboilers have been middling to good, and "Runaway Jury" turns out to be the best of the lot. It's a suspenseful, well-plotted and even better-acted thriller that turns "12 Angry Men" into 11 dupes and one very cool crook.

Grisham's books inevitably have a bone to pick with the justice system, and "The Runaway Jury" served up two to gnaw on: the swaggering arrogance of big business in class-action suits, and the increasing dependence on jury consultants who employ any means possible to pack a jury with members they believe will be sympathetic to their employers. In the book, the villain was big tobacco, but because that case has already been tried and won -- or at least neutralized -- the bad guys are now gun manufacturers.

Director Gary Fleder and a posse of screenwriters are uninterested in reasoned arguments and shades of pinstriped gray. The corporate gunsmiths, represented by smug, despicable billionaire Henry Jankle (Stanley Anderson), would gladly sell a piece to Osama Bin Laden if he had the cash. Meanwhile, the plaintiff is a widow and mother whose husband, as we see in the stomach-churning opening scene, was the victim of a workplace rampage by an mentally unbalanced worker.

To ensure that the case does not put them and their fellow keepers of the peace on the slippery slope that could redefine that reliable old Second Amendment, Jankle hires the most successful jury consultant in the business, egomaniacal manipulator Rankin Fitch (Gene Hackman), who has even fewer scruples than the company's weaselly chief council Durwood Cable. He assembles a New Orleans war room more sophisticated than the sci-fi cop shop in "Minority Report." It puts every member of the jury pool under high-tech surveillance in order to uncover their biases, backgrounds and anything else that would make them desirable, dependable or disposable.

The attorney for the plaintiff, Wendell Rohr (Dustin Hoffman), deplores the very idea of cherry-picking juries, but is finally worn down by Lawrence Green (Jeremy Piven), who offers his consulting services pro bono simply because he believes in the cause and the case. Green has no staff or hidden microphones, just a folder full of publicly available facts and observations and a headful of horse sense.

In the course of this, one Nick Easter (John Cusack) is seen and heard telling anyone who will listen of his resolve to avoid serving, and when his number is called, he informs the presiding judge (Bruce McGill) precisely why he would be of no use whatsoever to the criminal justice system. This raises the civic ire of the judge, who promptly orders him accepted. And it raises the suspicions of the lawyers, who think he could be a very large fly in the ointment, with good reason: Easter turns out to be a ringer, who with his partner and lover Marlee (Rachel Weisz) is looking to sell his vote to the highest bidder.

Rohr, a man of principle second only to Atticus Finch, is appalled, but is convinced by Green to at least keep the marker in play. Fitch, though his name is but one letter away from the most beloved lawyer in literature, has nothing even resembling a moral objection, or even a moral, but would much rather outwit Easter and his partner than have to subtract a zero from his own payday.

This battle of wits -- and the occasional henchman -- is clever and exciting, and is further complicated in ingenious ways, including a literally blind jury foreman -- nothing like a well-placed metaphor -- much to the credit of the writers. (Though four are credited, usually an exceedingly bad sign, we can assume that the rewrite by David Levien and Brian Koppelman is the brief that gets argued.) While it's not impossible to predict the movie's ultimate gotcha, it gets there with such style that no one is likely to be charged with plot-tampering.

The film's biggest plus is seeing old lions Hoffman and Hackman (who in their struggling New York actor days were roommates) going adversarial, and Cusack is perfectly cast as the wily wild card. But there are fine sidebar performances from Weisz; Cliff Curtis, as an ex-Marine who is both pro-gun and anti-Easter, and Marguerite Moreau as Fitch's radar-equipped assistant.

You may be exhausted by the time the gavel comes down. But even if you disagree with the film's political agenda, you'll be impressed with the skill with which it makes its case.