12 Character Studies

Rating: 8/10 (9 June 2015)

A teenage boy is on trial accused of murdering his father. At the end of his trial, the 12 members of the jury (lead by foreman Martin Balsam) retire to the jury room to reach their verdict. It initially seems like an open and shut case, but when eleven out of the twelve jurors reach a verdict of guilty with only juror number eight (Henry Fonda) reaching a 'not guilty' verdict, juror number eight takes it upon himself to try to convince the other jurors that the case against the teenager may not be quite as open and shut as it seems.
On the surface, 12 Angry Men seems to focus on whether the teenage boy is guilty of said crime. However, if you scratch beneath the surface this film isn't really about whether the teenager did or did not commit the crime, but rather it focuses on the notion of making sure that he gets a fair trial. Henry Fonda as Juror number 8 is the initial dissenting juror, but if you observe closely he never actually says that the boy is guilty or innocent, but merely offers reasonable doubt to counter any arguments or objections that are raised by the other jurors. Of course, predictably one by one the 'guilty verdict' jurors start to come round, but despite this the film is still involving because it's interesting to see how Fonda will convince everyone - clearly some men are more difficult to persuade than others, but I just found how Fonda achieved this to be fascinating and ingenious.
One could perhaps argue that it may be a bit contrived that a juror with no legal experience could convince his fellow jurors of a seemingly guilty mans innocence, but I think to criticise this film for doing that would be missing the point. I think the point here was to try to remind us that just because we're told that something is true or that we want to believe that it's true it doesn't necessarily mean that it is true. Reasonable Doubt was clearly the pivotal factor in this film.
I'm all for a good character study, but here we actually have 12 character studies. Despite its meagre running time, 12 Angry Men does enough to develop each character sufficiently. All 12 Men are from different walks of life - some of submissive, some are loud, some are aggressive, some are leaders - it all just felt so real and gritty and I must admit that I was immersed in almost every aspect of this impressive drama.
I really don't think there's much more that I can say other than I'm glad that I watched this film and also that I found it to be a tense, involving and thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes.