rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1957
Directed by Sidney Lumet; produced by Henry Fonda, Reginald Rose; screenplay by Reginald Rose
Starring Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Martin Balsam, John Fiedler, Edward Binns, Joseph Sweeney, Ed Begley, George Voskovec, Robert Webber
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
This movie takes place in jury room for almost the entire time. 11 jurors
are very sure the defendant, we see him only a second in the beginning of
the film, is guilty. Only juror #8 (Henry Fonda) is not sure. He is not
saying the guy is innocent but he thinks there is a reasonable doubt. The US
Constitution says that a someone is not guilty until he is proven guilty. It
is up to Fonda to convince the others of this reasonable doubt.
We never see the trial. We know everything because the jurors talk about it.
There are two main witnesses: a neighbor who heard things and a neighbor who
saw thing through a moving train. Fonda finds some points where those two
testimonies eliminate each other. Some are convinced, some are not. In the
beginning it is 11 to 1, but that slowly changes. From the start you see a
couple of jurors who are not easy to be convinced of the reasonable doubt,
especially juror #3 (Lee J. Cobb) and juror #10 (Ed Begley). We learn to
know that some people have some reasons to think the way they do.
The dialogue in this movie is great. Fonda, Cobb, Begley and the others give
great performances, together with the direction (by Sidney Lumet) and a
great black and white cinematography this is a real masterpiece. To keep a
movie interesting while it is only taking place in that claustrophobic
little room is a great achievement. An all-time classic, a must-see.