The excellence of cinema

Rating: 10/10 (26 December 2015)

12 Angry Men (1957) stands out for more than one reason, it was based on a teleplay by Reginald Rose, and was the first feature film to be directed by Sidney Lumet. The story deals with a court case relating to murder of a man by his son. 12 members of jury are sent inside the jury room to deliberate over the case and determine whether the boy killed his father or not, we as viewer are unaware of the court preceding that happened before the deliberation. However before the start of discussion between the jury members a preliminary vote is taken to find out where everyone stands, 11 jurors call the defendant guilty without a second thought which leaves only Juror no 8 (Henry Fonda) with reluctance to call the boy guilty so early and without discussion, everyone else believes the case to be open and shut and pressurize the remaining juror to join their side, juror no 8 however has other plan. What follows is an amazing interplay of confrontation, clash of personality and display of bias in the cloak of logic. The screenplay is tight to the extent that you don't want to miss a single scene or dialogue, and mind you maximum movie takes place inside one room with an occasional shot of doorway but believe me you don't mind that a bit, in proverbial terms it is the place where "all the action happens". The beauty of the story lies in the way Juror no 8 kept insisting on the need to communicate with each other as there is no other way to reach at a logical and fair verdict, he himself is not 100% sure if the boy is innocent, but believes in the principal of American Criminal Law, one must be convicted of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, i.e. to say that even if there is shred of a doubt that the man may be innocent than he should not be convicted of the crime. Everybody is reluctant to give the boy the benefit of the doubt because of their own reasons, some are convinced the boy is guilty, some are biased and some just want to get over with it so that they can continue with their plans. But what juror no 8 starts catches momentum and people slowly starts to see the light of reason and their conviction that the boy is guilty slowly starts turning into that maybe the boy is not guilty; every evidence presented during the trial is examined and re-examined, the previous notion that there is no doubt that the boy committed the crime is subsided by maybe the evidence was misinterpreted, mind you nobody is absolutely sure that boy is innocent but it is the possibility that the boy may be innocent that starts driving them.