Rent 12 Angry Men (1957)

A Masterpiece - 12 Angry Men review by GI

Powerful and compelling this drama is film everyone should see. It's certainly a masterpiece of tension with themes about bias, racism and the psychological effects of persuasion and conflict resolution. Even though the entire film (bar small introductory and concluding scenes) is set in one room it draws you in and becomes a film you can't turn away from. On a stifling hot summer afternoon twelve men acting as jurors in a trial of a young under privileged man accused of murdering his abusive father retire to the jury room to decide the boy's fate having been told that a guilty verdict will result in the death penalty. From the start eleven of the men are convinced the boy is guilty but one man has doubts. The resulting deliberations bring forth personal prejudices, hatreds and attitudes that sharply highlight the views of white privileged America. The issues of justice and the rights to a fair trial are openly there to see but underneath the film gets into the heart of social injustice and the effects on behaviour even when it may cost someone their life. This is a riveting film, one of the finest examples of serious drama in the classical Hollywood period and despite its age all the themes resonate today and, indeed in other countries not least the UK. This is essential viewing, a film to really savour for the direction, use of camera and the wonderful performances led by Henry Fonda and aided by Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley and all those who play the jurors. Simply a fantastic and thoroughly rewarding film.

Behind That Locked Door - 12 Angry Men review by CH

“You can talk until your tongue is dragging on the floor!”

And talk they do, throughout Twelve Angry Men (1957). What can left to be said about this film version of Reginald Rose's play? It continues to hit one straight in the heart and in the forehead, which is what one of the jurors threatens to do to some of the others in that closed room. Even then, it sports a glugging watercooler whose paper conical cups ease their tempers as a humid summer's afternoon tacks towards a storm and an evening's verdict (despite which, many keep their ties in place).

What's more, one of them asks another, topically enough, “don't you ever sweat?”

This is a tale, in resonant black and white, told in retrospect as the diverse Jurors, each known only by their number, listen to architect Henry Fonda who elucidates his doubts about a murder which has happened three months ago in the midnight shadow of an elevated railway. Here is logic contending with prejudice, that social concern which was so often the mark of Sidney Lumet's films.

Mostly sporting ties and with ashtrays to hand upon their shared table, these men often lurch to contradict the others and have to be reminded that “we're talking about somebody's life here” (an ad man doodles and claims it helps him think).

One might wonder how it was filmed, for it does something interesting with time. These ninety-five minutes appear seamless, the stuff of one take, but daylight turns to dusk as the hours go by. A working definition of suspension of disbelief.

Lest it all appear technical, the dialogue includes such lines as the ad man's variant on run it up the flagpole: “let's put it out on the stoup and see if the cat laps it up.” As one of them sneezes, he is told, “your horn works, now try your lights!”

“He don't even speak good English.” “Doesn't speak.”

One could say more, but should not spoil it for those yet to see this masterpiece. Simply ignore Manny Farber's contemporary description which reduces it to Lumet's “bringing a hundred tiny details of schmaltzy and and soft-center 'liberalism' into a clean mosaic”. And Farber also derides it as “the shrill tingle of... couterfeit moviemaking”.

Watch this film and call upon others to bring a verdict upon Farber.

12 Angry Men - 12 Angry Men review by OL

Good example of Group behaviour where individuals can be influenced by others in a group to form opinions.