The Other Side of a Courtroom Drama

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2017)

Most courtroom dramas tell the story of a trial, and typically most films of the genre center on the building of the cases, the trial in a courtroom, and the climactic moment the jury renders the final verdict. In "12 Angry Men", we see none of these aspects. We don't see the trial, we don't see the lawyers, and we don't see how the case was built. Almost the entire story is told in the confines of a jury room. The indisputable facts and the prosecution's case trickle in as the story progresses. There's a brief "prelude" where we see the courtroom, the judge, and a brief shot of the boy on trial for murder.
This is the world of "12 Angry Men". Except for a brief courtroom shot and one other codetta scene at the end, "12 Angry Men" spends about 90 of its 96 minutes running time inside a claustrophobic room where the fan doesn't work and it's supposed to be the hottest day of the year. Twelve men from differing backgrounds and age groups are put together to determine the guilt or innocence of a young man accused of murder. Fairly quickly we learn that an older middle-age man was murdered in an apartment and his son in his late teens has been accused of the crime. Two witnesses during the trial testified it was the boy, a woman across the street and an older gentleman in an apartment just above the apartment where the crime took place.
Without giving two much away, the story begins with an initial poll taken by the jurors. Almost all of them believe the boy is guilty, except one, juror no. 8 (Henry Fonda). The trial occurred over the course of six days and all of them seem a bit worn out. In addition, each juror seems to have differing agendas which start to rear their ugly heads. Juror no. 3 (Lee J. Cob) is one of two jurors who has a personal agenda about the trial. The other is juror no. 10 (Ed Begley) who constantly talks about "those people" and repeatedly stands from his chair when he hears evidence which might contradict the probably guilt of the accused. Juror No. 5 (Jack Klugman) is a soft-spoken young man who grew up in the slums, like the defendant. Juror no. 7 (Jack Warden) is a sports fan who cares less about the trial and doesn't want to miss a sporting event taking place in the evening. There's a kindly and wise older gentleman, juror no. 9, who turns out to have unexpected wisdom (Joseph Sweeney). And Martin Balsam plays the foreman of the jury who can't seem to keep the group from going at each other's throats.
Juror no. 8 at first can't seem to convince anyone there's any reason to doubt the guilt of the accused. Even when he says he simply wishes to talk about the case, many of the jurors dismiss him. He then takes a chance and asks the others for a re-vote in which he abstains. If the other 11 jurors still vote guilty, he's willing to take the verdict into the court.
A brilliantly acted one-scene film about the possibly dynamic of a jury room. Many real-life juries have taken many hours, sometimes days to reach verdicts. Other verdicts have been rendered in seemingly short periods of time. Each actor "owns" his character and as the discussion continues, the prejudices and irrationalities of the characters gradually reveal themselves. Interestingly, we have the notion that juries should be objective in their verdicts, but "12 Angry Men" poses the question: do verdicts reflect personal prejudices as much or in some cases more than simply reviewing and determining objective facts?