Finally, FINALLY managed to watch 'Twelve Angry Men' and Realized that over all these days, my movie lover friends were not cursing me for nothing. This 1957 movie is absolute Gem. There's no 'Action' as such in it, but there's drama. Not for a moment you can look away from the screen.
The movie takes place in a single room where 12 Jury members sit down to discuss/vote on the decision by the judge, in which he had convicted 18 year old teenager for murder of his father. Mandate is that whatever decision the Juries make, should be unanimous. Either all of them should support the decision or oppose it. 11 of them have already decided that the teen is guilty. Only one person (Jury no. 8) is not entirely sure about whatever was 'proven' in the court. So it's 11-1 now.
One should really watch how things unfold thereafter .....
Despite being shot 95% in a single room, it never looks one dimensional like a play (Even though it's based on a 1953 play by same name) thanks to intelligent camerawork, movements given to all the characters and the editing (editing is so seamless that it's hard to believe that movie was shot over 3 weeks ! It looked like it's shot in 2 hours of continues shoot !) All the actors add the value to it with some seriously good acting.
But these are not the only reasons that make this movie great. There's something more in it.... Success of the movie lies in how it makes us think ! It makes us think about the shades and angles of 'truth', prejudices that can shape decision making, tendency to sit on the fence and then go with the majority (brilliantly shown in an early scene where couple of men hesitantly raise their hand in favor of 'guilty' only after seeing others raising their hands for the same !)
Lots of thoughts were going through my mind about Jury system while watching the movie. I will try to put them down. When I was in US for few weeks, an employee - resident of Florida - from my office had went to the court on one day for mandatory Jury duty. When he came to the office next day, I got chance to talk to him. His words were ringing in my ears today while watching 12 Angry Men. He had said "When someone's life is depending on your decision, you have big responsibility. Just following the gut feeling is dangerous. There HAS to be conclusive evidence to prove him guilty". Same thing director was trying to convey in movie.
Off late there were couple of movies throwing the light on judiciary system of past and present. Both were very different in their approach towards the subject, but were indeed focusing on crucial aspect of decision making of Jury/Advocate/Judge, which was : 'Impact of personal lifestyle/thought process as well as impact of surrounding (i.e. Media, mass opinion) on decision making'. First was marathi movie 'Court' which focussed on overall judiciary system and another was 'Rustom' which threw light on famous Nanavati case which was responsible for abolishment of Jury system in India because Juries were impacted emotionally and lost the ability to think rationally(However in USA it's still in practice). If people in Jury can get influenced as easily as shown in Angry Men/Rustom then there will always be danger of populist decision....But same thing can happen with Judiciary system consisting of single decision maker - The Judge. Because he also might be victim of ill-thinking like Juries. So what could be the best possible solution ? I don't know. The only thing that I can say right now is that everyone should be as less prejudiced/judgemental as possible, not just when acting as Judge/Jury/Advocate/Eye witness but in everything he/she does in his/her life
