Great Film Reflecting American Cultural Changes

Rating: 7/10 (20 October 2004)

12 Angry Men is a terrific film that reflects a lot of the past problems and the proposed solutions of immigration, youth violence, and of course, overcoming one's own background and discrimination. The film surprised me in how progressive it was, and the ending social conclusions that it reached.
In the film you can see clearly form a rift between the upper class, conservatives who are unwilling to change and the progressives who are proposing change for the better of all of us; this film, deep down, is a very class conscious and socially conscious film about discrimination and the deep lines it had in American society in 1957.
Although the film's portrayal is sometimes overly simplistic, drawing a "stubborn, pig-headed" conservative versus "righteous, just" progressive, one can find that this was very much so a necessary film for its' time. In many ways, it is a work that was socially far advanced.
Also what is interesting is the fact that it is a film that is done with great simplicity; some actors, and a room... It relies greatly upon the pure talent of the actors, and the great direction of Sidney Lumet -- this film is truly unique due to the true minimalism it embraces in its' production tactics, yet this is something that could easily go unnoticed due to the incredible quality of the film.