Smartorhypo
Highly Overrated But Still Good
Kailansorac
Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
Voxitype
Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.
e-96997
January 3, 2017 - There are movies that remind you why you love movies.The deliberations of a jury in the case of a homicide: a young man with a difficult course is accused of the murder of his violent father. From the beginning, the case seems clear: the son is guilty because everything accuses him. A first round of voting is requested. All vote "guilty" except one man.
Thus begins a discussion of one hour and fifty which will reveal the reasons for the act, the unresolved issues of the investigation, the various motives of the members of the jury. Everything happens, everything explodes because of a single individual who did not say "guilty". A man who wanted to know more, because he was not convinced in his soul and conscience of the guilt of the young man.
As simple as it is, 12 Angry Men is an exceptional story, which tells so much about the human, his social relationships, his relationship to the truth, what he believes to be the truth, the interference of personal experiences in his perceptions and on the strength of doubt and dialogue.
The 1997 version by William Friedkin (The Exorcist, French Connection, Sorcerer, To Live and Die in LA, ...) is splendid. 2 hours of dialogue in a closed room that keeps you in suspense, you have to do it. The plot focuses on the arguments and gives no conclusion as to the guilt or otherwise of the accused. It's very strong because the point of view of the film is precisely what is said about the act, and not its nature.January 12, 2017 - I just saw the 1957 version of Sydney Lumet with the splendid Henry Fonda.Surprised: I find that the version of William Friedkin of 1997 is better than that of 1957. Longer than 20 minutes, better staged, better characters, the tension is more palpable. But seeing the one from 1957, I remember that I clearly felt the progress of the tension thanks to the very subtle work of Friedkin's camera.
If you look at it (look at it!), Observe when it is tight or wide, when it moves the camera or not and how the Fa4on to show the scene influences the emotional intensity. I just saw it for the fourth time in 6 months and I do not get tired.It reminds me that this great director and not known assz has made a better remake of another classic, the Salary of Fear. His version is called in French The Convoy of Fear (or Sorcerer in VO) and it is extraordinary. Re-released on DVD / Blu-Ray recently thanks to its status of cult film.Decidedly this guy is an unknown genius. He has to his credit a flop of intriguing and sometimes disturbing films.Praise of doubt: faced with 11 certainties, 1 man gives a doubt and that will save the accused. Jack Lemmon, the ordinary and modest man who said no.This story seems to me very important in our time when the media is on the alert because of the explosion of information sharing methods. We must more than ever be cautious when appearances, labels, reputations.
We must never believe, we must examine, always.
Alain -
disdressed12
this remake of the 1957 classic is actually pretty good.it doesn't have the same impact or resonance of the original,but it is good int it's own right.just like in the original,there are some fine actors here.Courtney B. Vance,William Petersen,Ossie Davis,George C. Scott,Armin Mueller-Stahl(who has never turned in a bad performance,even in a bad movie)and jack Lemmon are just a few of the brilliant performers here.there is only one weak link. and for me,that would be Tony Danza.he just seems out of his league here.although it wasn't necessary to remake the classic version(since there was no way to improve on it)at least they didn't butcher the material.for me,Twelve Angry men is a 7/10
angery20
This remake of a classic simply sucked. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the director.If I could do a shot by shot, role by role comparison, the major difference is that in this remake the actors are so visibly "ACTING". Each line is freighted with meaning as if it was the most important utterance in theatrical history. The camera angles and lighting all re-enforce these scenery chewing interpretations.For example in the original we have a man commenting on the rain and telling a simple story about losing a football game because of heavy rain. That's it a bit of exposition an almost throw away line of character development. In the remake that same bit is treated as some quasi-mystical life lesson, an epochal moment in time. The character changes from a guy passing time to a bore who thinks the world revolves around his part time job as an assistant football coach.Each and every speech in this remake is treated in the same way. There is not one line small enough that it's not treated with the attention usually reserved to Shakespearian soliloquies.The acting is often bad and that's frequently not the fault of the actors. It's the director that tells the actors to dial it up or down. It's the director that sees the whole picture. The pacing of this remake is amazingly slow and that makes its 117 min run time seem like 3 hours. The original was 96 minutes and was over before you noticed the time.I would love to go into greater detail but that would require I watch this movie again, and that ain't happening.
samcloth
I vote with the majority (and not because I lack the courage to stand up for my conviction!) and hereby decree the older version better than the newer. I have to admit, though, that while there are several solid reasons to prefer Fonda's show to Lemmon's, a good portion of my bias comes from having known and loved the earlier one for so long a time. I really mean it when I say I *love* it; I watch it a couple or three times every year, sometimes more, and come away from each viewing with something new that I had not appreciated before.Now that I've clearly pronounced the winner, let me take a little space here to extol and console the also-ran. It's a great piece of work, and it comes up even greater when you consider it was a made-for-TV project. The unfortunate thing is that any viewers who're familiar with the first film watch the re-make while visions of sugarplums dance in their heads, Fonda et al being the sweetmeats in mind here. This is not to say that the Lemmon bunch wasn't a juicy treat in its own right (has it EVER been less than a treat to watch Scott or Davis?). But it's hard to give the new kids your undivided attention when comparisons to the old are being simulcast by your brain, despite your best attempts not to notice.A few observations that serve to raise the later version above the earlier in specific places were inescapable, however. The highly experienced Cronyn was more insightful, even when not speaking, than was Sweeney, who had fewer major screen credits under his belt at the time he appeared as the elderly juror in the first film. The same is true, though less so, of the well seasoned Davis as opposed to Fiedler, much Davis's junior and whose performance was pretty much perfect to the degree the role allowed. Davis was brilliant, but more importantly, the role morphed into something fleshier by the time he undertook it. For him, the part was that of a racial minority member who had been recognizing and surviving prejudice longer than the other African American jurors. It was as if he became, right before the viewers' eyes, a revered elder sage, capable of offering counsel and/or chastisement to the hotter blooded Williamson. For my money, nobody but nobody serves up a more convincing bigot than Begley, but as with Davis's, Williamson's role included the additional dimension bestowed upon a character in a story about racism who is himself from a racial minority. Jurors 2 and 10 were just plain different characters from one film to the next, and all 4 actors were admirable.Keep in mind that as dear as you may hold Pepsi and Oprah for their own stellar qualities, the truth is that they followed and imitated Coke and Phil Donahue. There's nothing wrong with being a truly talented new kid as long as you can accept that when the original you trail was not merely exceptional but groundbreaking, your uniquely crafted attributes will never appear all that unique.
