However, while watching Twelve Angry Men , I realized that the film is atrociously outdated and overdramatized. I was ready to turn it off within the first thirty minutes. This is a classic film that has undeservedly fallen into obscurity. It is one of the best treatments of divorce and family law that has ever appeared on film. Reflecting the gentility of the social conventions followed by its aristocratic characters, much of the film's intrigue lies just below the surface.
Some goals are so worthy that it is glorious even to fail.
In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch may have failed to achieve justice for Tom Robinson, but he helped change the society that wrongfully convicted Tom. The image of law in the 1960's was shaped by the exploits of civil rights attorneys like Bobby Kennedy. Now the connection between law and justice seems much more problematic. Maybe it was always problematic. The victories of modern women against a male-dominated corporate structure have been portrayed on the screen in such films as Norma Rae and Silkwood .Less often seen on television and in films are examples of where the struggles for gender and racial equality have collided, resulting in either bitter conflict or hopeful cooperation.