Movie Reaction

“Twelve Angry Men” a movie directed by Sidney Lumet, is about a jury case on a teenager accused of killing his father. Written in 1957 by Reginald Rose you know the consequences for such a crime is high. This kid was being tried for murder and he was getting the death sentence. Twelve men, who knew nothing about each other, were in charge of this child’s fate. All of the evidence was against him and it seems the jurors would have an easy job. I could not believe it when that one man voted not guilty, but I could understand. Putting a human being away to death is not an easy task. This is what made it so interesting.
The child had a neutral face; it was innocent enough to make him look not guilty, but he did have the look, also, of a crazy person. The one man who voted not guilty gave me a feeling of gratitude because I knew I wasn’t the only one. We shared the same belief. What made him stand out was in the midst of people who didn’t care about whether this child lived or died because it did nothing to them, he gave it doubt. These people weren’t all bad people either, but they just did not care. This similarly describes the attitude of people towards each other today. They really do not think about what could happen, and what did as long as it does not affect them. They are just worried about getting theirs, like the man that wanted to go to his baseball game, and really do not care much about what happens to others (this idea is generally what drives war as well). All of the characters’ unique personalities were also quite attractive as well. Every person had a specific idea, trait, skill, etc. that worked on this case and helped bring everything together. Even those who disliked the boy for good or bad reasons had their moments that brought about truth. This really made the movie more enjoyable.
The best part was the pieces of evidence become easily disproved while every jury member changes their minds. The pieces of evidence initially sounded like the boy was completely guilty, but given a little thought and examination the holes between the pieces of evidence were easily seen. This was very enjoyable to me because I love it when things with little relation come together. This is where character’s knowledge began to come together for the better of the case. The setting was perfect as well. The weather was a scorcher—the hottest day of the year as juror #7 called it. It was a perfect metaphor of how tensions were already high within the jury room because things immediately went off with a bang. When six of the jurors were convinced that the accused was not guilty, it became cloudy and a storm was rolling in. This was because the six easy ones were already convinced and the next six would be the hardest to get over and emotional tenses would turn into a storm.
In the beginning, I immediately disapproved of this movie because I was not a big fan of black and white movies. They always seemed to bore me to sleep, and I was more into the modern movies of my time. Older movies I could hardly understand as well because most of them had deeper meanings or at least a different way of getting to them. This one was different though, because there was always something going on in the case solving mystery. The setting was so simple, it only took place in one building and less than ten minutes was contributed outside of the one juror’s room. This kept the movie right at the main focus the whole time and the emotional turmoil kept turning up which made the movie even easier to watch. I was so surprised at how something so simple could not only be so complex, but entertaining as well. The plot was also simple enough for me to understand and follow as well as predict what may happen next. It kept unraveling like a good book as more and more was put out on the table, both literally and figuratively. All of these things made “12 Angry Men” the first black and white movie that I ever enjoyed and a great old style movie with modern issues. It is very easy to see how such a movie could have won three academy awards.