Insert verdict joke here

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 2012)

12 Angry Men is at the same time a very conventional and a very innovative film. It's a classic social drama, one of those dour black-and-white movies where men in suits talk about Serious Issues, and that can be very off-putting to a modern audience. But at the same time there's a lot of interesting, subversive stuff going on below the surface.
For starters, there's the format. 12 Angry Men is what's known in television as a "bubble episode" -- it takes place almost entirely within one room, with the only action being dialogue between the characters. And this totally works. The movie never becomes dull, even for a member of my attention-span-deprived generation. Moreover, our isolation as viewers mirrors the jury's own isolation. The only facts we know are the ones we overhear, which puts us in the same position as these men. Of course, all this could fall apart without good acting, but the mostly (at least now) unknown cast pulls through and does an admirable job.
What's most striking about the film is the uncertainty it leaves us in. Unlike in TV lawyer shows, there's never a smoking gun that says that the client is innocent or someone else did it. All that 12 Angry Men introduces is doubt: our eyes, our ears, the testimony of others, all can deceive us, so determining the truth becomes an impossible. The film reveals the absurdity of the American justice system, which puts so much stock in not just frail human perception but also the biases and pettiness of ordinary people. In the end the accused goes free not because he is innocent (that remains undetermined) but because Henry Fonda's character is very persuasive, and another guy wants to get out early to go to the ball game.
Of course, you could also read this as an affirmation of the justice system. The jury is presented with a stack of convincing evidence, but through argument, is eventually able to come to the right conclusion. That's what makes this film so interesting: it's ambiguous to the point of paradox, being simultaneously a range of opposite things. I don't buy the idea that all great art is ambiguous like this, but in this case it's certainly true.