An Excellent Look Into the Jury Room

Rating: Null/10 (19 January 2004)

12 Angry Men, I first saw when I was in law school a few years ago. I was blown away by what I saw. From a cinematic point of view, this movie has everything. The performances are top-notch, the writing is tight and fluid and the direction makes the viewer feel as if they are juror #13 actually sitting in the room.
From the legal standpoint, this movie should be shown to potential jurors to better understand what it is they are to do once they go into the jury room. Obviously, a jury like this one is a defense attorney's dream, but the vision of how jury deliberations play out has never been more wonderfully recreated than in this movie.
The remake that was made a few years ago was good, with fine performances by everyone, but the original is always better. 12 Angry Men, set entirely in one room for the duration of the film, with the jurors being the only actors seen on screen is one of the best dialogue driven films ever made. The characters and their traits come out through the deliberations, but we never learn the names of any of them, except in the last moments of the film. It is not about the characters, it is about the dialogue. I have yet to see a movie that can mimic this brilliance.