12 Angry Men Review – 12 Angry Men is an American drama released in 1957. 12 men in the Jury have to come to a unanimous decision for the verdict of a criminal trial. All of them find the accused to be guilty but for one person in the room who wants to talk it through before taking a decision. The rest of the movie is on if they are able to build consensus on the verdict they are going to arrive at.
The movie is an adaptation from a teleplay done by Reginald Rose who had co-produced this movie. Director Sidney Lumet had made this movie predominantly in a single set which is the Jury room. There are very few scenes which covers any other location than the Jury room. Although the entire movie is in a Jury room and is very dialog oriented still the movie has a gripping 96 minutes. It is as equal as any racy thriller.
The discussion is happening on a very hot afternoon in the New York City caused due to depression. The fan in the room is not working and the group is having a heated argument and actually sweating it out. As the movie travels it reaches a point when the whole atmosphere is gloomy and then there is light and then there is wind. The use of atmosphere as a metaphor for the high points in the discussion is brilliant. Even the position and stance of the 12 men is neatly coordinated and at any frame you would realize the level of involvement, consensus and agreement they have with the ongoing topic. The names of the men in the Jury is not revealed to us and only in the end there is a scene where you get to know the names of two of the men which then becomes irrelevant. The characterization of the 12 men is done very well. There are men who are not so sure of what they want, there are men with strong opinions and there are men who want to just get this out of the way so that they can attend to what they had planned for the day. The verdict is also quite serious involving death sentence or the release of the person who is accused.
This is a movie that every movie buff should watch for the sheer brilliance of the plot, characterization, props, acting and the dialogues.
Must Watch
First there is a problem in your commenting platform. The first comment one does gets eliminated and don’t feel like commenting another time, this time I saved my comment so second time I can copy and paste it when the first attempt is a loss, so correct that please (: … the jury topic is a great one to make a story on, John has done it John Grosham has done it. The life of jury is difficult to as their life is confined and lawyers try to influence their opinion… this one looks interesting… there are larger conotations in this of society in general. Well why does anyone focus so much on a criminal life?, there are many innocents out needing help and are not given. If a crime is done it is better to see the evidence and punish them, instead of complicating things especially for grave crimes I don’t think jury opinion is even necessary, or crimes that are not grave jury is fine…anyway!!…seems like a good short film to watch(: … yes after i first submitted this comment, it came session timed out please try out again, good I saved comment before submitting.
Thanks Andapo for referring to the issue… I am sorry about the issue you are facing… I will check with wordpress as I use their blog platform on this issue… I always feel Jury is one sided based on the belief of majority in the society… Which is when the point of justice becomes moot. There is still no other easier way to solve this… It is definitely a good film to watch… there is a Hindi remake of this by Basu Chatterji Ek Ruka Hua Faisla