An acting and writing tour de force!

Rating: 9/10 (5 October 2002)

12 ANGRY MEN is quite simply a film masterpiece. You might not know it from the description--12 jurors who are complete strangers to one another are collected in one room to decide a murder case. 11 believe the defendant, a young boy from the wrong side of the tracks and living in the slums, is guilty, beyond the shadow of a doubt. The last one, Juror #8 (Henry Fonda), believes there is a reasonable doubt about the boy's guilt. How Juror #8 eventually gets the other jurors on his side is the point of the entire film, and it almost entirely takes place in the one small room. Hardly splashy, with no special effects--just 12 actors, a script, and the camera.

Sounds boring? This film is anything but. Reginald Rose writes a great story, and though you sometimes get the feeling that this film is meant to be a play, that's largely due to the slightly claustrophobic feel of having the entire proceedings of the film take place in one room. Works for a play, but in a film, one expects cuts to other places, wider shots etc. Still, even this counts in favour of 12 ANGRY MEN, because it forces one to concentrate on the case, the dialogue, the actors, the characters. Of course the film is talky. There's hardly any action. But it couldn't be more well-paced or timed. In fact, it's exciting, in its way. Every time a new vote is called, every time a vote changes to 'not guilty', the audience feels the triumph of something, some 'je ne sais quoi'. Director Sidney Lumet does an excellent job of manipulating the black and white medium he chose for this film, making the film timeless (even more so than the 1997 TV remake with Jack Lemmon in Fonda's role--yes, the jury is no longer one of '12 Angry White Men', but colour still dates a film in a way black and white doesn't).
The character study is really what makes the film: you'll recognise everyone in that jury room, from the non-strident nonconformist (Henry Fonda) through to the man who has such great difficulty separating his personal emotions from the facts of the case (a stunning Lee J. Cobb). There's the bigot (Ed Begley) who realises that his words will always fall on unsympathetic ears; the flighty guy who just wants to get to his baseball game (Jack Warden); the shrewd old man who shouldn't be discounted just because of his age (Joseph Sweeney); and the stuffy intellectual (E.G. Marshall) who isn't too uptight to change when he realises he's wrong. That's only half the cast of characters in this film, and aside from the rather unfortunate foreman or Juror #1 (Martin Balsam), every single character is well fleshed-out and a believable person. You can understand the reasons why they change their votes; it's all perfectly within character. Quite an accomplishment, to bring to life 12 men in the space of one and a half hours. Much credit, of course, must go to the writing of Rose for real, credible characters and dialogue. One remains riveted to the film even though it's mostly talk and no action; that's surely an indication of how great the writing and acting in 12 ANGRY MEN is.
Henry Fonda does a fine job as the man who initially stands alone with his own reasonable doubt. As usual, he underplays his character rather than grandstanding it, thus allowing for his fellow actors to shine in the showier roles. All of them turn in brilliant performances, but of particular note would be Cobbs, whose final impassioned stand as the odd man out (in a complete reversal of the beginning of the film) is simply stunning. Marshall and Sweeney are excellent in their roles as well.
This is most certainly one of the best films ever made: understated, underplayed, but definitely not over-rated. You've heard about 12 ANGRY MEN, I'm sure--so if you haven't seen it, why not? You're missing out on a great script, a great cast, and a great moral about the value of democracy in the American judicial system (one that isn't hammered into the audience--it's made with no self-congratulatory fanfare). Watch this--it's worth it.