Justice for ‘12 Angry Men’
The Scoop features personal essays on movie-centric topics.
By Elliott Cuff
Few movie speeches stand out more to me than Jack Nicholson’s iconic courtroom tirade in A Few Good Men.
Nicholson delivers it with such venom, wielding his superiority complex like a weapon as he cuts through the tense courtroom air. It's an explosively compelling speech from a truly commanding screen presence, and in many ways it encapsulated to me the excitement and spirited nature of the American legal system—in stark contrast to the image of stuffy English lawyers wearing powdered wigs in my native United Kingdom.
Raised primarily on American-produced entertainment, I loved seeing the contests fought between good and bad, between right and wrong. I found it thrilling to pick a side, cross my fingers, and hope for a positive outcome.
But my whole perspective dramatically shifted once I saw Sidney Lumet’s extraordinarily impressive feature debut, 1957’s 12 Angry Men, for the very first time.
It’s Getting Hot In Here
Unlike A Few Good Men, Lumet and screenwriter Reginald Rose weren’t interested in the theatricality of legal practice. 12 Angry Men is set almost entirely within a single confined space, a small, claustrophobic, and excessively warm jury room. It’s far more interested in the reality of judicial service—specifically the tense, uncomfortable situation that arises when 12 strangers are charged with deciding one person’s fate.
From the beginning, Rose’s smooth introduction of naturally occurring exposition does an excellent job of laying out the facts for us. An 18-year-old Hispanic boy is being accused of murdering his father: if he is declared guilty he will be given the death penalty, and our 12 jurors must reach a unanimous decision.
It’s also the hottest day of the year and the air conditioning isn’t working in our confined space, giving a dual meaning to the ever-rising temperature in the room.
Immediately after settling into the jury room, our group elects to take a vote to see where everyone stands, with Juror #7 off-handedly musing that “we can all get out of here pretty quick.” Eleven men opt to vote guilty, leaving only Henry Fonda’s Juror #8 with enough pause to consider the alternative. What follows is a nearly 90-minute-long legal and moral deliberation that plays out in real-time, and it’s absolutely enthralling.
Juror #8, Please Stand Up
It’s tough not to admire Lumet for choosing the single-location drama as his first film, because while it might have been easier to shoot and finance than some grand theatrical production, that route in and of itself presents plenty of challenges—namely the importance of retaining the audience’s attention despite a distinct lack of physical action.
In many ways, 12 Angry Men is a perfect case study that proves exceptional cinema only requires two things: flawless dialogue, and performers with the range and dexterity to deliver it. Lumet keeps us tightly within this sweltering room, and everything outside it melts away. Nothing else matters. It’s all about these 12 men, and one boy’s life that hangs in the balance.
We’re privileged to be given the fly-on-the-wall treatment as prejudices are revealed, agendas come to light, and repugnant dogmatism shines brightly. It’s telling, though, that the lack of physical action never grows tiresome, because it’s what those 12 men bring into the room that makes the movie so engrossing.
“Lumet keeps us tightly within this sweltering room, and everything outside it melts away. Nothing else matters. It’s all about these 12 men, and one boy’s life that hangs in the balance.”
12 Angry Men is an ensemble piece through and through, and Fonda’s Juror #8 stands out as much as he does because of the different perspectives that he clashes against—most notably Lee J. Cobb’s prejudiced Juror #3 and Ed Begley’s racist and xenophobic Juror #10. Though the remaining nine men aren’t quite as outspoken against Fonda’s viewpoint, each man plays a crucial role as the film methodically unfolds.
Fonda may take center stage in our minds because he’s the most recognizable figure in the room, but Lumet doesn’t favor his viewpoint over the rest of the group. Fonda barely has a particularly strong opinion to begin with; he merely can’t be certain one way or the other. In that sense, he’s our pillar of objectivity, and through him we are able to deconstruct each one of his peers.
Justice Takes Shape
As excellent as the acting performances are, 12 Angry Men is unmistakably a technical triumph too. Lumet’s camerawork is sublime, exhibited early on in two key decisions of filmmaking genius: awarding the audience just a single, brief look at the silent and seemingly terrified defendant, and introducing us to the jurors in an eight-minute unbroken shot where we watch the title characters file into the room, stand around and chat amongst themselves, then eventually find their seats.
Lumet’s direction generates moral claustrophobia that feels suffocating even today, over 65 years after the film first premiered. Rose gives each of the performers so much to work with on paper too, and the speed at which he was able to organically develop each character shouldn’t go unnoticed.
Most of the characters could be categorized as stock stereotypes when we first meet them, but the film wastes no time in showing us who each of them actually is, from their varying temperaments to their ability (or lack thereof) for impartiality. In a sense, each of the jurors individually represents different variations of man, and through their varied viewpoints we begin to see the many definitions of justice take shape. But that’s when Fonda’s role becomes so clear. He’s not there to lay out his take on justice; he merely serves to remind the others that their individual desires are irrelevant.
The Bridge in the Jury Room
Despite being nominated in three major categories at the 30th Academy Awards, 12 Angry Men was unfortunately beaten in each case by David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai, a film that dwarfs Lumet’s jury room drama in ambition and scale but also mirrors its performative and thematic success. While The Bridge on the River Kwai wasn’t the first war movie to highlight the futility of conflict, it does so in an incredibly pointed way—something that could be said about how 12 Angry Men tackles issues within the American criminal justice system.
12 Angry Men depicts the many forms that prejudice can take, and at a certain point, it elevates itself beyond the simple premise of its plot. It stops caring about whether the accused boy is or isn’t guilty—it instead challenges the 12 very different individuals in the room to put what divides them aside and come together to reach a just result.
It asks them to reach a mutual understanding because that’s the only way that justice can be served correctly, and that’s what has always stood out to me about the film. Life isn’t ever as simple as good versus bad or black versus white; we all exist in the messy gray space in between.
It’s exciting to watch A Few Good Men and cheer on Tom Cruise as he goes head to head with Nicholson, and it’s easy to see Cruise as “the good guy” who needs to win. But 12 Angry Men made me realize that we don’t deal with such absolutes in real life. There are no good sides or bad sides to take.
All that matters is that we never stop striving to be just, and to do that we must always champion the importance of learning to understand one another.
Elliott Cuff is a writer, journalist, and film enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter @CuffWrites and Instagram @elliottlovesmovies.