Other Titles • 12 Angry Men • La Parola ai giurati (1957) • Die 12 Geschworenen (1957) • Die Zwölf Geschworenen (1957)
Synopses for 12 Angry Men (1957)
1.
Directed by Sidney Lumet, and starring Henry Fonda, 12 ANGRY MEN is a courtroom drama about the characters who make up a very indecisive jury.
(19 votes)
2.
"Absorbing, tense and exciting. Leaves a tremendous impact!" -Daily Variety
Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Ed Begley and Jack Klugman lead the distinctive cast of jurors whose character portrayals are "perfect in every detail" (The Hollywood Reporter). With its star-powered cast and four Oscar nominations including Best Picture, 12 Angry Men is a powerful, suspenseful and "fascinatingly entertaining film" (Los Angeles Examiner).
Eleven jurors are convinced that the defendant is guilty of murder. The twelfth has no doubt of his innocence. How can this one man steer the others toward the same conclusion? It's a cast of seemingly overwhelming evidence against a teenager accused of killing his father in "one of the best pictures ever made" (The Hollywood Reporter).
(19 votes)
3.
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. --Dave McCoy, Amazon.com
(17 votes)
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