12 angry men - masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (9 November 2010)

This movie shows how you can make a film on the lowest budget possible, with only one or two scene sets and 12 good actors. Basically the whole movie takes place in one room where a jury of 12 men discuss their verdict for a young man suspected of killing his father. Reading the lines above you might think this is a boring movie, but the plot unfolds, as only one man of the jury is not convinced that the boy is guilty and slowly begins to convince the other members of the jury of his doubt. The story becomes at times a detective story, the jury trying to put together missing pieces of the murder puzzle.
This movie shows in a marvelous simple way the mechanism of the justice system, how easily a man can be convicted to the death sentence based on prejudice, subjective declarations of witnesses and an unprofessional defense lawyer. It stresses out the importance of declaring someone "not guilty" if there is a reasonable doubt in your mind about his guilt. It shows that you should always ask questions and not accept everything on first hand.
Besides these simple, yet profound ideas, there is a solid acting from everyone of those 12 jury members. Each is unique in his way, with his own personality,history and background. There is the typical immigrant, the wise guy cracking up jokes, the mediator, the wise old man, the educated man with stiff views of the world, the geek, the self-made man who did not forget where he came from, the choleric, the prejudiced man, the stupid guy who does not give a damn about this trial but only about getting to his football game in time. They don't have names, in fact there is no name mentioned until the very last scene in the movie, each jury member just has a number, yet you distinguish them very easily just by their personality. Some are given more screen time, some less, but they all do some marvelous acting.
Last, but not least, the camera and directing! Can I just say, for a movie taking place in one room, it's really amazing...stressing out gestures, faces of people, objects to give depth to the scenes. I'll never forget the scene where one jury member just tries to convince the others of the young boy's guilt, because "these people (living in slums) are born this way and they do these things, they're violent, they're animals" and one by one, the jury members leave the table, the place of dialog and go to other corners of the room, signaling that they do not wish to continue this conversation. Or the scene where they do a re-enactment of an old man trudging along to reach his front door.
Truly, a masterpiece, I recommend it to anyone anytime!
10/10