12 Angry Men

Sydney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) is one of the finest movies of all time. Recently I saw it again and just couldn't help writing about it. It is a movie based on human prejudices and emotions and how they affect our judgement.

If I were to tell you that almost the entire movie takes place in one room with just 12 people you might think that it must be boring. The truth cannot be any further from that. It provides a fascinating display of interaction between 12 diverse personalities and how one man (Henry Fonda) stood against the prejudices of the others and brings them on his side one by one.

The movie starts with a court scene where a young slumdog (couldn't resist using the term) is charged with the murder of his father and the judge asks the jury to come to a unanimous decision about the guilt or innocence of the accused. The case is heavily stacked against the defendant and seems like a no-brainer. The jury takes a preliminary vote and 11 of them think that the boy is guilty while one is not sure. Upon asked by the others he replies that he wants to discuss the case for a small period of time to see if there is any room for doubt, afterall the jury must be convinced that there is no scope for any reasonable doubt. Most of them are outraged by this but he says that it is a man's life they were deciding and they could at least spare some time to it.

The movie has some very fine distinguished characters in it. The jury comprised a person who was biased against the slumdogs, a person who was hell bent on giving a guilty verdict because he thought today's youth are spoilt, a person who wanted to go to the ball game and just wanted it to be over soon, a person who had lived all his life in the slums, a very polished gentleman, an immigrant, a person having prejudices against immigrants and a few others. You can imagine the task ahead of the juror who stood against them. He started evaluating the evidence one by one and found out the doubts in them. Each piece of evidence was examined to pose a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors. Ultimately they return a 'not guilty' verdict.

Even though this movie is made in black and white I would strongly suggest people to see it. If you are not into black and white I suggest you watch 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla', a 1986 TV movie which was an exact copy of this one. This has a fine bunch of actors including Pankaj Kapur and Anu Kapoor. I am sure that you will not be disappointed.