12 Angry Men

A few months ago I was in my local cigar shop hanging out with the guys. During our conversation, one of the regulars mentioned that he was giving some thought to auditioning for a role in a local play. The play was entitled 12 Angry Men and was based off of the movie from 1957.

Due to the demographic of the shop, most of the guys knew the movie very well. Because it hit the big screen long before my time, the regulars were happy to tell me all about it. I thought it sounded interesting and made a point to check it out at some point.

One late night I had trouble sleeping and was flipping through the infomercials on television. When I found nothing on, I checked out the free movies on the On Demand service through Comcast. To my surprise, the movie 12 Angry Men was available for a few more days. Not having anything better to do, I hit play and watched the story unfold.

The movie is filmed in black and white, and takes place in a jury room within a courthouse. The jury just went through a murder trial and needed to come up with a verdict. Due to the time spent on trial, all but one jury member was willing to give a quick guilty verdict in order to get out and back to their everyday lives.

One juror is adamant about reviewing all of the information available and feels that there is a chance that the defendant could be innocent. As the movie goes on, each juror begins to change their mind in regards to the fate of the defendant.

For a movie filmed entirely in a single place, there is a tremendous amount of action throughout. I found it to be an excellent movie that I would most definitely recommend everyone check out at some point in time. I’m told there is a newer version of this movie filmed in color, but I hear it isn’t nearly as good as the original.