12 Angry Men (1957)

[StevePulaski]

12 Angry Men (1957)
Directed by: Sidney Lumet

Henry Fonda stands before a group of eleven certain jurors in 12 Angry Men.

Rating: ★★★★

Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men is an interesting choice for one of the greatest American films of all time given its simultaneous abstraction and straight-forwardness as a film. It concerns a group of twelve jurors who are retired to reach a verdict on a murder case involving an eighteen-year-old living in the slums of New York, who is accused of murdering his father at their home. We are immediately taken into the New York City courthouse, where the twelve jurors are sent to their private room to discuss the case and come to a unanimous vote in favor of life or death for the boy. All but one juror is positive beyond a reasonable doubt that the boy in question is guilty and deserves the chair for his crimes.

The man is Henry Fonda's character, a man who, like all but one other soul in the room, remains nameless until the end of the film. While he doesn't entirely believe the boy's innocence, he is unsure that he is guilty and feels it is wrong to jump to a decision about a young life so quickly without at least talking over the facts. With that, the jurors are forced to divulge some sort of conversation to get on the same page in favor of one side or the other. During this time, the New York City heat is sweltering, the fan in the room isn't working, and one juror cannot wait until he is released so he can go to a baseball game in the evening. What would normally be a quick meeting between twelve men turns into a bitter, but rational display or exchanging facts about the case and going against groupthink by providing logical alternatives to the events recounted by the witnesses.

Fonda's character is called a lot of things in the film and many of them are accurate to his persona, albeit in a bitter, shortchanging manner. He is referred to as a "golden boy," sympathizing a young boy in the slums who has ostensibly taken on a life of savagery if he is in fact guilty. His character basically recites the same dialog repeatedly throughout the film, stating how he is not totally sure if he indeed not guilty, but can't be certain that he is guilty, leaving a reasonable doubt on his mind that he is too ethical to override.

One of the many intriguing things about Fonda's stance is his ability to go against the grain; the slightest doubt in his mind, at first, the commonality of the boy's alleged murder-weapon, a pocketknife, leads him to stall an otherwise unanimously convinced jury that the boy on trial is guilty. How many people, even if they had the slightest doubt in their mind, would challenge eleven other men who have raised their hands in favor of the boy's guilt and subsequent death? Most people, including myself probably, would bury our skepticism under our own volition of self-deprecation: "maybe I missed something," we'd think, "maybe I'm just way off," we'd add, before humbly raising our hand in a delayed fashion to make what looked to be a hung jury a unanimous vote. If Fonda's character would've done that, 12 Angry Men would be a depressingly common and pointless short film; not one of the greatest works of American cinema.

The key to the film's renowned qualities lies in a few places. As stated, the first is the plausibility to believe the jurors become wrong-headed once they begin agreeing with Fonda's character. Some would argue that having these characters basing an entire trial/murder on the happenings of scattered incidents that were relatively minor in the grand-scheme would result in a miscarriage of justice. Film critic Mike D'Angelo says that these twelve jurors would probably be the same ones who would acquit O.J. Simpson of his murder charges. The fact is, we don't know at the end of it; we weren't there, we were never destined to be there, and all we know is that one person is dead, one person is about to own or disown responsibility to that death, and there is reasonable doubt lingering in the room like fragrant cologne. The correctness or morality of the jurors' decision isn't so much in question, for I'm sure a dinner conversation between two people who viewed the film disagreeing with the jurors' decisions could indeed occur with both parties having enough well-founded evidence.

This brings me to the other noteworthy element about the film, which is its ability to operate in several different genres. The attributes of the film I just mentioned, leading it to be discussed and interpreted in a number of different ways, makes it a biting mystery, while the rapid-fire, investigative dialog in the second and third act turns the film more in the direction of a suspense film or a crime-drama. Finally, there's the inherent melodrama of character relations, with numerous not getting along with one another and the hard-headedness of other jurors standing in the way in preventing what could be a potential miscarriage of justice (Ed Begley's character, for example, who remains incorruptibly certain that the boy is guilty).

Finally, above all in some minds, there's the sheer entertainment value of 12 Angry Men. This is a film that further proves my point that a film that takes place in one room and is heavily built on character relations and character development can be just as gripping as a film predicated upon large action setpieces and costly displays of action. As droll as the film may seem, this is one of the most entertaining courtroom-dramas I've yet to see with some of the most ambiguous questions about rebelling against groupthink, justice and legal practices, and the sheer impact and significance of reasonable doubt(s) I have ever seen.

Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley, E. G. Marshall, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Jack Klugman, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeney, George Voskovec, and Robert Webber. Directed by: Sidney Lumet.