Gets everything right that matters

Rating: 9/10 (1 July 2002)

Here's an illustration of the difference between theatre and cinema. This is the definitive cinematic "performance" of Reginald Rose's play; the one or two trivial flaws are of no consequence whatever. On the stage, they WOULD be of consequence. As E.G. Marshall performs the role, Juror nr. 4 is so humourless and anal that you start to wonder if he's really all that bright (and the story requires that he really IS all that bright). And Henry Fonda tends to play Juror nr. 8 from moment to moment, in effect contradicting himself (if you find yourself failing to warm to him as much as you should, this is the reason). THE two key performances, in short, are weak. On stage this would be fatal. On the other hand, with STRONG performances all round, "12 Angry Men" on the stage could not possibly go wrong, however much the director takes it upon himself to stuff things up - just as the stage director of "Don Giovanni" can make a donkey of himself by setting the action in present-day Darlinghurst, if he likes, and, with sufficiently good musical performances, the opera will not be harmed.
If you exclude Ed Wood movies and the like, "12 Angry Men" was shot with as much economy as any other film in history, with roughly HALF of the exposed footage making it into the final cut (I find this hard to believe, too, but it's what the director says, and it's not inherently impossible). No doubt accounts for the odd touch of unpolished acting here and there. What's amazing is how perfectly Lumet has paced the action, how RIGHT each shot is.
Lumet conveys the confined space all the more effectively by including thirty seconds, perhaps a minute of footage of the outside: the opening shot where we track into the jury room, and the closing shot in the open air outside. These moments - which established there was a wider world while cutting the jury room off from it - were crucial.