A guide on how to make a film

Rating: 10/10 (15 August 2016)

It is not often that you come across a thriller movie with no action sequences that blows you away, but that's where the brilliance of screenwriter Reginald Rose comes in play. The movie is set in a single room where 12 jurors are locked until a decision is made on an apparent 'open and shut' murder case. In the process, the movie touches on several pressing issues: why it is important to question the obvious; troubling sense of priorities of men who value attending a baseball game more than the life of a man; how questioning the facts, eliminating possibilities and being unprejudiced are the necessary qualities of a decision maker. The movie brings to the table 12 men of varied characters and lays bare each one in the limited screen time through just dialogue and no use of flashbacks. Even before the debate starts, we get a sense of an impending situation of a deadlock with the clever hints of a hot afternoon, faulty air conditioning, a locked room all adding to claustrophobia. Lumet used special lenses which make the room appear smaller than it actually was and throughout the course of the film adjusted the lenses to make he room appear even smaller, adding even further to the claustrophobia. A masterful performance by Lee J Cobb playing a self righteous juror having troubles with his teenager son steals the show as he acts as a nemesis to Henry Fonda, who also gave a wonderful performance. A perfect mixture of writing, direction, camera-work and acting make this movie a masterpiece of film making.