12 Angry Men

For people who like arguments, 12 Angry Men is a must watch. It has everything that real arguments have: calm rationality; intense stupidity; ad hominem; dubious logic; prejudices; personal biases; indecision; shifting burden of proof; the powerful notion of "beyond reasonable doubt"; sympathetic considerations; and a lot of confusion. Eventually, sanity does prevail, but not before the unfolding of not only the arguments, but also the true natures of the arguers.

A black and white movie made in 1951, by debutant Sidney Lumet, based on a 1947 play of the same name by Reginald Rose. What stands out is the way the director has created a powerful movie that has a very simple storyline, with the minimal use of techniques. In fact, of the 96 minutes that the movie spans, only a couple of minutes of the action happens outside a small room. The rest of the movie occurs in a small jury room where 12 jurors sit around a table and debate over a case. With hardly any background score, the movie makes a very effective use of the natural sounds that the people in the room are making -- fragmented chin-wag, coughing, sighs of perspiring people. A very careful use of the camera also adds to the intensity.

They have to decide whether an 18 year latino boy from a lower class neighbourhood, who has allegedly murdered his father, is guilty or not guilty. The judge requires them to come to an unanimous decision either way. The evidences against the boy are so strong that, the jury thinks it is an open and shut case. So, this is a futile exercise which should get over in a minute. However, to everyone else's dismay, one of the jury members does not vote "guilty". One against eleven. He is childed as to how come he sees something that the 11 of them don't. He only says may be he is wrong, but "I just want to talk." He cannot put someone on an electric chair without even talking about the matter.

Around the table you have a variety of people: an architect, who does not know whether he believes the boy's version or not, but wants to be considerate; an old bigot who thinks everyone in such neighbourhoods is evil; another loud mouth who seems to have a personal vengeance because his own son had stranded him; a salesman who is always indecisive; another man who is apathetic to the whole proceedings, who just wants to reach one conclusion or the other quickly lest he misses a baseball match; a dispassionate, rational accountant, though not very considerate, has a mind open enough to see "reasonable doubt"; and so on. The movie then is much about the unfolding of the case as the unfolding of the different backgrounds, natures, beliefs and failings of the 12 people, who form a cross section of the society, in that sweltering room. They need to fight over not only the details of the case, but also fight their own inner "demons" before everything starts making sense again.

A very powerful movie. Please watch it, if you haven't already.