Twelve Angry Men: Movie Review
PHILLIP RODRIGUES
PERIOD 7
3/25/15
Have you ever been to a hockey game that was tied up in overtime and every time the puck
went one way you would cheer and whenever it went the other way you would bite your
fingernails? Well, that was what watching Twelve Angry Men for the very first time felt like!
Watching the movie was a roller coaster ride, sometimes the protagonist looked like he was
going to fail, and sometimes the protagonist looked like he was going to achieve his goal. Also,
just like a hockey game in overtime, the jury table was very tense, and you never knew what was
going to happen next! Twelve Angry Men was a movie about sitting in a jury room and
discussing the fate of a young boy’s life. It has one mind that tries to manipulate other minds to
follow in his thinking.
The movie Twelve Angry Men takes place in a jury room in the late afternoon on a hot
summer day in New York City. The main characters in this outstanding movie were juror #8
(protagonist) and his exact opposite juror #3 (antagonist). Other main characters are also the rest
of the jurors at the jury table, which were Jurors # 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and the foreman.
This story is about a boy who is accused of stabbing his father, and 12 men are assigned as jurors
to decide the boy’s fate. After a lot of fighting and argument, the jurors finally come to one
unexpected decision.
The actors in this act did an excellent job, but some of them could’ve had a better act. I think
that juror #9 did an amazing job because he portrayed the attributes of an old wise man looking
for justice in a young boy’s murder trial. Juror #3 did a great job because he was always stern
and you could always tell from the beginning that he wanted this boy in jail. On the other hand,
the foreman could’ve improved in his act. As a foreman, he is supposed to be demanding and
control the people in the courtroom, and even though he got their attention and made them listen
to him, he wasn’t as demanding as he should’ve been. One last actor that did an awesome job in
his act was juror #8 because his voice was very convincing and even if what he said didn’t seem
realistic you still wanted to believe it. In conclusion, there were many people who did an
amazing act and there were some who could’ve improved it but still did a great job.
There were many parts of the movie that I enjoyed and some parts that I did not enjoy as
much. One thing that I did not like in the movie was that there was always a static sound in the
background noise, and after a while it got very annoying. One thing that I did like, though, was
the action parts that occurred in a small room with 12 men. An example of one of these scenes is
when juror #3 is reenacting the boy stabbing his father and almost actually stabs juror #8. I like
this because it was a very suspenseful part and you didn’t know how anybody was going to act
after the scene. Another thing that I really liked about the movie was that everyone was very
strong about their case and showed great enthusiasm. This was shown in the movie when the
vote was 11 non- guilty 1 guilty at the end of the movie and juror #3 was really upset and angry
that everyone sided with juror #8 and he still wanted to defend his case. In conclusion, there
were many things in the movie that I liked and disliked.
There were many lessons that I learned from this story Twelve Angry Men. The first lesson
that I learned is that you shouldn’t put your own life events into your decision in a jury. I learned
this as a moral because when you are in a jury, and specifically this jury, you are putting a young
boy’s life on the line. So, juror #3 choosing the boy as guilty only because he hates tough boys is
an unacceptable response, since his choice may lead to a young boy’s unjust death. Another
moral that I learned is to be a very open minded person when coming down to a solution with a
group of people. I learned this because in the movie, juror #8 always believed that the boy
could’ve committed the murder, just like every other juror thought. But, he also had a reasonable
doubt in his mind that the boy was not guilty, so unlike the other jurors, juror #8 voted notguilty so that they could continue to discuss the case. If, on the other hand, juror #8 did not have
an open mind like juror #3, the boy would’ve been wrongly committed of murder and killed. In
conclusion, there were many morals and lessons learned after watching the movie Twelve Angry
Men.
I think that young teens would really like this movie. I believe that this is true because I’m a
young teen and I liked it because you’re not too young to find the movie old and boring but
you’re not like the majority of older people these days that would rather watch reality TV than
see 12 people sitting in a courtroom. I would recommend this movie to political people because
the movie is all about discussing a young boy’s fate inside a court’s jury room. If you are a
political person, learning about the judicial government and how it works may be interesting to
you. On the other hand, I would not recommend this movie to young children. This is because
young children have a short attention span, and the second they see the dull jury room with
everything in black and white, they will immediately lose interest and start to do something else.
I would rate this movie PG because it does have some violence in it but not really anything that
bad. The main reason, though, is because I really don’t think young children will even find
interest in this movie anyways, so even though it’s appropriate for them, they probably will not
even watch it anyways. My final word on this film is that it was an exciting screen play with one
mind that changes the thoughts of 11 other minds in only a matter of hours, and he saves an
innocent boy’s life.