Film Review: "12 Angry Men"

"12 Angry Men" is one of the first films by famed director Sidney Lumet, and focuses on a jury deliberating over a murder case. The case in question is an 18-year-old boy, who stabbed his father and ran away. During the court proceedings, which we do not see, the court presents two witnesses: an elderly man who hears the boy threaten his father, hears a thump, and sees the boy run down the stairs. The second is a woman across the street, who sees the boy stab his father while an elevated train was passing.

As the movie begins, we see the jury dismissed and enter their jury room. This film should be an example of how one doesn't need fancy sets to wow the audience and keep them captivated. The vast majority of the film takes place in one single jury room, and the story and characters are enough to engage the audience for the entire running time.

As I suppose is customary, a vote is taken at the start, and 11 of 12 jurors found the boy guilty. Only one, an architect, was not sure; he wanted to discuss the case more, to see if there's anything they missed. As the jurors go over the evidence, we see that some are adamantly against the kid from the start, others are more ambivalent, and one just wants the game over and done with, so they can watch a baseball game. Yet as the case goes into more detail, we realize the knife the boy used wasn't as unique as they thought; the old man suffered a stroke, and likely didn't see the boy run down the stairs in time; the woman across the street needed glasses and likely didn't clearly see the murder.

The movie leaves us without an answer. Sure, the jury reached a unanimous consensus, but we don't know if the boy did it. But the story isn't about that. It's about the differing viewpoint of all these people. Especially the last holdout juror, who felt the boy was still guilty until the very end. We realize he was projecting his own anger at his son's abandonement towards the boy. The film was such a fascinating study in different people, different perspectives. And it sort of supports what I always feel; in many, if not most things in life, we can never be totally sure, despite all the supposedly blatant facts in front of us. We see it a lot in medicine, how doctors seems so sure that someone's gonna die or live, but they don't really know.

The film itself was acted very well. Henry Fonda was fantastic as the initial "not guilty" juror. Lee J. Cobb was also excellent as the last "guilty" juror. Almost everyone in the film was well cast. Sure, they played almost caricatures of real people, but wasn't that somewhat the point? Most of us can probably relate to someone in the jury, because each person came from a different walk of life, and that's the most interesting part, seeing their perspective play into their decisions. Overall, an excellent film, and deserves its place as a classic.