How can anyone give it less than 9?????

Rating: 10/10 (6 May 2006)

This movie deserves a perfect ten out of ten and has every chance to be in the list of all-time classics. It deserves the eighteenth rank it got in IMDb's best movies list. To summarize the plot: it is about twelve jurors on a murder trial. Eleven out of twelve think the defendant is guilty of murdering his father and one of them thinks, "Element of Doubt" still remains. The movie is about the character study of all the twelve people in that room trying to sift through all the evidence. The twelve men jury represent a cornucopia of Americans: the bigots, the prejudiced, the cool and calculated, the timid and the self-aggrandizing gloaters. It shows how some people get carried away by some outward appearances. At the end of the movie, we do not know if the defendant is actually guilty or not. We just know that there exists an element of doubt in the evidence provided. It shows how a careful evaluation reveals there could be something beyond what is obvious. As an academic researcher, I have been taught that most of the times, the most obvious solution could be wrong and this movie bears testimony to this fact. I think every jury member should be recommended this movie before he/she decides on the verdict.