12 Angry Men - A good Movie.

I watched a very good movie, just now. 12 Angry Men. It is a serious movie and you can say, a courtroom drama.

In a courtroom, an 18 year old boy - Spanish American - is accused of murdering his father. The actual trial is not shown. The judge asks the jurors to go into the jury room and discuss and decide about the verdict, whether the boy is 'guilty' or 'not guilty'.

The jury is comprised of 12 men of different backgrounds. Now, first, the voting begins. 11 men vote as 'guilty' and one as 'not guilty'. The jurors are known by just numbers. No names are used. Juror no.8 (Henry Fonda), votes as 'not guilty', because he is not convinced fully to declare the boy 'guilty'. A 'guilty' vote will mean 'death sentence'.

Now, the drama begins. Everyone should convince others why they think the boy as 'guilty' because the verdict should be unanimous. Every juror has got his own prejudices according to their backgrounds. Some are soft spoken, some are argumentative, some are arrogant, merciless and so on.

The gist of the story looks so boring, I know! But once you are settled with the movie, you get so engrossed in it. This movie was made in 1957. A remake in Hindi was made in 1986. 'Ek Ruka Hua Faisla' was the name of the movie and unlike most of the remakes, this one was equally superb. K.K.Raina played Henry Fonda's role very well and the cast included Pankaj Kapoor and Annu Kapoor. I still remember the movie, which I had seen around 1987-88 in TV and enjoyed.

The English movie had great reviews and was nominated for 3 Oscars.

No female character, no attractive locations, nothing. Just one hot, sweaty jury room. The characters don't even address each other by name. In the last scene, while coming out of the court, juror no.9 asks juror no.8, 'What's your name?'. No.8 says 'Davis'. No.9 says, 'Mine is McCardle. Well, so long'. No.8 says, 'So long'! Everyone disperses.!

A very good movie!