12 Angry Men

Adapted from Reginald Rose’s television play, this film marks the directorial debut of Sidney Lumet. At the end of a murder trial in New York City, the jurors retire to consider their verdict. The man in the dock is a young Puerto Rican accused of killing his father, and eleven of the jurors do not hesitate in finding him guilty. However, one of the jurors (Henry Fonda), reluctant to send the youngster to his death without any debate, returns a vote of not guilty. From this single event, the jurors begin to re-evaluate the case, as they look at the murder – and themselves – in a fresh light. The film was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Director (Lumet), Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based On Material from Another Medium (Rose).
Sidney Lumet’s directorial debut Twelve Angry Men remains a tense, atmospheric (though slightly manipulative and stagey) courtroom thriller, in which the viewer never sees a trial and the only action is verbal. As he does in his later corruption commentaries such as Serpico or Q & A, Lumet focuses on the lonely one-man battles of a protagonist whose ethics alienate him from the rest of jaded society. As the film opens, the seemingly open-and-shut trial of a young Puerto Rican accused of murdering his father with a knife has just concluded and the 12-man jury retires to their microscopic, sweltering quarters to decide the verdict. When the votes are counted, 11 men rule guilty, while one–played by Henry Fonda, again typecast as another liberal, truth-seeking hero–doubts the obvious. Stressing the idea of “reasonable doubt”, Fonda slowly chips away at the jury, who represent a microcosm of white, male society–exposing the prejudices and preconceptions that directly influence the other jurors’ snap judgments. The tight script by Reginald Rose (based on his own teleplay) presents each juror vividly using detailed soliloquies, all which are expertly performed by the film’s flawless cast. Still, it’s Lumet’s claustrophobic direction–all sweaty close-ups and cramped compositions within a one-room setting–that really transforms this contrived story into an explosive and compelling nail-biter.