12 Angry Men

Rating: 8/10 (31 July 2018)

This film stands up remarkably well after half a century and the casting separates the men from the boys in the sense that the real actors like Robert Ryan went on getting work for years afterwards while the flavor-of-the-month school like Telly Savalas plus the out-and-out novelty castings like Trini Lopez enjoyed a mayfly moment and then found their natural level. It was a workable idea and movies with numbers - The Magnificent Seven, Ocean's Eleven - tended to score by a combination of potent names and a decent script. This is no exception and it has another factor going for it i.e. the three stages; 1) Recruitment, 2) Training, 3) the caper and/or mission, all designed to generate interest segueing into suspense. Whilst it can be faulted if one puts ones' mind to it it is also easy to score it eight out of ten for all three stages.