Breaking the rules.

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 1999)

12 Angry Men breaks the rules of screenwriting:
Instead of showing us the story, it tells us the story through the dialogue of the jurors.
Instead of giving the eyes a visual feast, it hunkers down in a single room (aside from a couple of opening shots).
Instead of giving us a clear cut protagonist and a clear cut antagonist, it gives us twelve visible characters and one invisible character caught up in a web of indecision.
And it's brilliant. Sometimes you just gotta break the rules.