Guilt & Justice - A Lesson to us all

Rating: 9/10 (20 June 2000)

A very good film that seems more suited to the stage. The story is simple yet concise and thought-provoking. A teenager with a history of crime behind him is charged with murdering his own father.
Most of the jury, the dis-interested judge and several witnesses are all of the same mind - guilty!!
Its left to one man, Number 8, (Henry Fonda) to use his liberal sense of justice & circumstance in defending the boy against impossible odds - especially when faced with one of the biggest cynics of the jury, Lee J Cobb(his best performance by far)
Lumet directs with great aplomb, the routine story is given extra life by the wonderful characters who really give a tour-de-force performance, and perhaps makes us feel guilty when we decide individuals in modern society are instantly guilty based purely on their ethnicity, social standing and other inner prejudices
But what I admired most was the camerawork. 90% of the film takes places in the juryroom where the 12 men (no women, no blacks - this was 1957!) deliberate. With a clever combination of lighting & tight camera angles you feel as if you can smell the clamminess & claustrophic atmosphere of that intense little room.
A weak point could be directed at Fonda for playing the whiter-than-white liberal rising above the savage right-wingers, and to be frank I didn't rate his performance much above mediocre - for me, his best role apart from On golden Pond would be Once Upon A Time in The West!
The true acting honours really go to Cobb and especially, Ed Begley, playing the racist redneck to a tee.

***/*****