Should be in everybody's list of top ten movies.

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 2004)

12 Angry Men is one of the movies which doesn't particularly divide audiences: virtually everyone agrees that this is a masterpiece. What is amazing is that the film is set wholly in one location, yet for its entire duration it maintains suspense, interest and topicality. Not a line is wasted, not a character is underdeveloped and not a single minute is surplus to requirement.
Twelve jury members retire to a jury room to debate the innocence or guilt of a young kid accused of murdering his father. Eleven of the men are ready to return an instant guilty verdict. The one thorn-in-their-side is Henry Fonda, who isn't totally compelled by the evidence he has heard and who wants to debate the case a little more. Slowly but surely, he raises points and possibilities which get the other eleven men considering whether or not the murder is really such a straightforward open-and-shut case.
Sidney Lumet directs the film with claustrophobic brilliance. The sweltering hot weather adds to the mens' frustrations and leads to some vociferous and provocative confrontations. Fonda is excellent as the liberal jury member who dares to invite ridicule for his seemingly untenable opinion, but he is upstaged by the extraordinary performance of Lee J. Cobb as the most aggressive and sharp-tongued of his rivals. There are superb performances also from Jack Warden as a juror who isn't especially bothered about the verdict as long as he can get to the baseball match on time; John Fiedler as a softly-spoken juror whose opinions often go unnoticed; Martin Balsam as the self-appointed spokesman; and Robert Webber as a rather self-conscious ad executive. Indeed every juror is played to perfection, and in some ways it is unfair to single out one above the rest. The script by Reginald Rose is pure genius. The whole story is told via talk - there's no direct action and no fancy flashbacks - yet it is enthralling from first minute to last. See 12 Angry Men. This is what film as a serious medium is all about!!!