A brainy, thought-provoking movie without any action, romance.

Rating: 10/10 (28 April 2009)

It's a rarity to find such a film without any action, romance, comedy etc. and especially no commercial elements. Well, you can see that it's made in 1957 and maybe that's the reason...?!!
The movie starts with a scene in the court(as usual in some movies) where the accused has been proved guilty and given a death sentence for committing a murder. Here comes the actual part of the film, where the scene now shifts to the jury room, where twelve men take part in a discussion. The beginning 20 minutes gives the details of jury member, how they're here. It's not so surprising that one decides the life of a boy/man by deciding him guilty or not guilty in order to get to a baseball game!!!
As usual, you find an exceptional guy who keeps mum throughout the introduction of the movie(and steals the show for the rest of the part of the movie!!!). He's the only guy who said he thinks the boy was not guilty since there's a little doubt in the murder. And there it starts, the whole discussion takes place with a few breaks and at the end of vote count there seems to be increasing support for the boy being not guilty. However, there's a twist almost at the end of the film, where juror 3 and 4 tear apart the theories of the boy being not guilty. It's not the actual hero who proves the accused is not guilty, but watch for yourself.
Another one whose performance is to be mentioned is the role of Lee.J.Cobb who's also the executioner and shows up the emotional stress at the end, exceptional performance of the father!!! Finally, I give the movie thumbs up if you're not a fan of action genres, but you enjoy a thrilling ride not through adventure but dialogs that's been crisp and provide a superb stroke of intelligence.