12 Angry Men

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2011)

I should start by saying that twelve is my favourite number, but it wasn't just because of that that I planned to see this film, I had heard many people state it is one of the finest films in the genre, from debuting Oscar and Golden Globe nominated director Sidney Lumet (Murder on the Orient Express, Dog Day Afternoon). Basically the jury of twelve men (a jury is always twelve people) has just come from the courtroom after hearing the defence and prosecution rest their cases, and they are now the people who must decide the verdict for the case. They must determine if a young Spanish-American is guilty or not guilty of the first degree murder by stabbing of his father, and if they all unanimously agree to find him guilty he instantly gets sentenced to death. With a weak alibi of going out to the movies and not remembering what he saw, a knife he supposedly bought and lost, and a number of witnessed hearing screams, someone shouting the words "I'm going to kill you" and possible seeing it happen, it seems open and shut. All Jurors have immediately decided to vote guilty, one Juror however is voting not guilty until he clears up the facts, this is Mr. Davis, aka Juror #8 (BAFTA winning Henry Fonda, also producing). At first he is voting opposite to everyone else for the sake of conversation and discussion, deliberations however crop up and he slowly straightens things out and brings forward things that the defence, prosecution and ultimately witnesses may have missed. These include Juror #8 having the same knife as the boy and pondering the stabbing, the noises going on when the murder happened, the reason for the shouted words, the timing of the old man heading to answer the door, and most importantly, a key witness who chose not to wear glasses but marks on her nose prove she does. Slowly the Jurors, some wise, bright and empathetic, one or two arrogant, prejudiced and merciless, may be seeing that this lone Juror has some good points and brings forward some good ideas as to what may have happened. Juror #3 (The Exorcist's Golden Globe nominated Lee J. Cobb) and Juror #10 (Ed Begley) for a long while seem adamant to stick to their verdicts of guilty, but slowly the others: Juror #1 (Psycho's Martin Balsam), Juror #2 (John Fiedler), Juror #4 (E.G. Marshall), Juror #5 (Jack Klugman), Juror #6 (Edward Binns), Juror #7 (Being There's Jack Warden), Juror #9 (Joseph Sweeney), Juror #11 (George Voskovec) and Juror #12 (Robert Webber), do start to doubt their decision is right. Being swayed by the very convincing predictions of the murder events, one by one the Jurors change their verdict to not guilty, until the final one sobbingly gives in, and in the end they all agree the boy should go free. Fonda gives a magnificent performance as the calm, collective and convincing lone voting Juror to turn the others decision, Cobb is equally fantastic as the one who takes ages to change the mind of, and the other actors all get their moments on screen as well. The one location film based on a play could have been a little dull, but director Lumet keeps you gripped with a marvellously worded script played out to perfection by the actors, with the addition of great camera work and set pieces as well, it is a brilliant classic courtroom drama. It was nominated the Oscars for Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film from any Source, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Drama. Henry Fonda was number 6 on 100 Years, 100 Stars - Men, Juror #8 was number 28 on 100 Years, 100 Heroes & Villains, the film was number 88 on 100 Years, 100 Thrills, it was number 87 on 100 Years, 100 Greatest Movies, and it was number 42 on 100 Years, 100 Cheers. Very good!