A riveting, tension filled 'thriller' in the confines of one single room

Rating: 9/10 (9 December 2018)

As a directional debut, you could do worse than Sidney Lumet's excellent '12 Angry Men'. It would be the beginning of an illustrious career, even though perhaps the heights of his debut would never quite be reached again.
12 Angry Men is, apart from several opening shots, closing shots and a couple of scenes in a side room, filmed completely in one single room. To create a fascinating, character driven & tension filled picture can be quite difficult for some directors with this knowledge, but Lumet's direction here is world class. He uses the single location to enhance the feeling of claustrophobia, which also enhances a feeling of tension as all characters grow angrier as the film progresses. Much has been said about Lumet's use of camera angles to enhance the mood in our characters, such as the fact that the camera is generally placed at higher angles during the first act of the film, and gradually seems to be placed lower and lower towards the end, as more people are convinced of the 'not guilty' vote, so the camera emphasizes their superiority over the 'guilty' voters. Even though the film is largely in a single room, Lumet also uses weather conditions as a mood setter, with the setting being in a heatwave of some kind, and when the tables start turning towards the end in terms of the votes, the weather switches to pouring rain, which is generally an even larger symbolism of 'chaos', and that is precisely what is going on during the final moments of this picture.
12 Angry Men is also undoubtedly one of the best acted films in cinematic history, with in particular Lee J. Cobb giving the performance of a lifetime. This is not just an angry character, thriving on nihilistic thoughts and hating on everything that happens, but a tragic character that is prejudiced due to his strained relationship with his own son. This brings forth another point, which are ofcourse all twelve characters. All of these characters have some kind of background, origin, and all of them behave very differently and according to their personal lives and experiences. An opening shot of the room featuring all of the jurors entering and bantering with eachother already gives the audience an idea as to what kind of people these jurors are. All the while Lumet uses very long takes, switching between mid-shots & wide-shots in single takes to create the most immersive and personal experience possible. Later in the film, when things start to heat up even more, he also induces a fantastic use of the close-up, which is ofcourse generally the most personal and direct of shot compositions.
Furthermore, the screenplay by Reginald Rose is also a phenomenal addition to this film, as every single line of dialogue, character building and general confrontations enhance the tension significantly. Ofcourse, we do not get to witness extraordinary production design or scale due to the simplistic setting, but it is hard to imagine what Lumet could have done even better considering the material he was given.
Due to Lumet's technical expertise, visual mood setters, claustrophic atmosphere & the fantastic energetic acting, it feels as a 'thriller' in a drama setting. Ofcourse the fact that the audience does not know anything about the case beforehand also helps, since the viewer will be even more compelled to follow the discussions used in this picture, because we do not know anything about the case yet. In the end, whether or not the kid is guilty is shown to be quite irrelevant, as this film is mainly a message about the interference of personal prejudice in terms of law. Every character, however, is displayed as having some kind of humane reason as to why they think a certain way. Even Juror #3, who, as stated before, relates the kid in question to his own relationship with his son.
As one of the best-acted films of all time, combined with a fantastic screenplay, impeccable direction, in depth character development and characterization, 12 Angry Men is no doubt one of the greatest directional debuts ever made.