12 Angry Men
A dissenting juror in a murder trial slowly manages to convince the others that the case is not as obviously clear as it seemed in court.
- Director: Sidney Lumet
- Genre:Drama
- Runtime:96 minutes
Cast
Martin Balsam : Juror #1
John Fiedler : Juror #2
Lee J. Cobb : Juror #3
E.G. Marshall : Juror #4
Jack Klugman : Juror #5
Official Site:-
The film tells the story of a jury made up of 12 men as they deliberate the guilt or innocence of a defendant on the basis of reasonable doubt. The story begins after the closing arguments have been presented to the judge, when he is giving his instructions to the jury. According to American law in most states (both then and now), the verdict in murder cases(whether guilty or not guilty) must be unanimous. A non-unanimous verdict results in a hung jury which in turn forces a mistrial. The question they are deciding is whether the defendant, a teenage boy from a city slum, murdered his father. The jury is further instructed that a guilty verdict will be accompanied by a mandatory death sentence (under current American criminal law, a defendant must first be found guilty or not guilty, and then the jury in the sentencing phase must find an aggravating circumstance to recommend the death penalty). The jury of twelve retires to the jury room where they begin to become acquainted with each other’s personalities and discuss the case.
The plot of the film revolves around their difficulty in reaching a unanimous verdict, mainly due to several of the jurors’ personal prejudices. An initial vote is taken and eleven of the jurors vote “guilty”. Juror number 8, the lone dissenter, states that the evidence presented is circumstantial and the boy deserves a fair deliberation, upon which he questions the accuracy and reliability of the only two witnesses to the murder, the fact that the knife used in the murder is not as unusual as testimony promotes (he produces an identical one from his pocket), and the overall shady circumstances.
Having argued several points, Juror 8 requests another vote. He proposed that he would abstain from voting, and if the other eleven jurors voted guilty unanimously, then he would acquiesce to their decision. However, if at least one juror voted “not guilty” then they would continue deliberating. In a secret ballot Juror 9 is the first to support Juror 8, and not necessarily believing the accused is not guilty, but feeling that Juror 8′s points deserve further discussion. Read more
