A show portraying the difficulties of negotiations between different parties.

Rating: 9/10 (26 March 2017)

Despite being filmed entirely in a room, 12 Angry Men succinctly portrays the difficulties and the different dynamics involved in reaching consensus between individuals with a range of personalities. The movie involves 12 jurors, having to decide on a unanimous decision if the defendant is guilty of stabbing his father to death. Mirroring some of the negotiations techniques as exemplified in Roger Fisher's and William Ury's "Getting To Yes", the film shows how such techniques could be used to achieve a common understanding and decision. In this review, I will seek to explore three of the good principles of negotiations according to Fisher and Ury and how they are utilized in the film, namely focusing on interests, separating the people from the problem and the use of an objective standard to negotiate. Initially, upon settling down in the discussion room, all but one juror, juror 8, jumped to the conclusion that the defendant was guilty for murdering his father without much discussion. Since the decision had to be unanimous between the jurors, they had to negotiate with each other to find out about their respective viewpoints. In these first few scenes of the film, negotiating through the emphasis on the interest of the different parties was clearly exemplified where Juror 8 suggested that each juror could present their opinion and evidences on why each of them felt that the defendant was guilty. In doing so, the interests of the different jurors could be better understood. In this round the table discussion, the idea of "Being hard on the problem and soft on the people" was clearly reflected where Juror 8 committed himself to his interest of achieving a fair and just verdict for the defendant and thus, strongly advocated his interest by constantly created opportunities for constructive discussions to occur between jurors. By targeting the problem and not the rest of the jurors, the rest of the jurors did not feel threatened and hence, was more willing to listen to what each other had to say about the case, which further led to more constructive discussions. An extension to this idea would be "placing the problem before the answer". After hearing each of the juror's perspective on the evidence present in the case, Juror 8 questioned the validity of some of the evidence raised before giving objective reasons on why some of these evidences may not be as foolproof as some may think. As such, he successfully justifies his reasons for why he feels that the defendant could be potentially not guilty.