"12 Angry Men" Review: The Death of Logic, Reason, and the American Judicial System

Sidney Lumet's iconic courtroom drama is an entertaining watch... if you don't read into literally anything.

November 27, 2022

Loyola Law School is one of the nation's top graduate universities. In 2021, participation in their day program for a Juris Doctorate cost nearly $100,000. Of course, that is but one cog in a well-oiled machine. Aspiring lawyers must pass many difficult exams and meet numerous state-mandated requirements to practice law. It is a financial black hole, a time-sucking hindrance to personal satisfaction, a taxing journey to the most professional arena in the world, and if finessed correctly, a one-way ticket to immortality.

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On June 19th, 1995, football legend and accused murderer O.J. Simpson stood before the jury in the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center. He got instructed to try on a pair of black gloves, including the bloodied one found at his home. As he “tried” to pull them over hands already donning latex gloves, it was clear: the defense, earned or not, had its trump card.

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Reasonable doubt. It is the backbone of the American judicial system, even more so than lifelong sentences for minorities on non-violent drug offenses or letting white rapists walk free because a prison term for depriving a woman of her sexual autonomy is “not appropriate.”

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The jury must be sure, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the accused is guilty.

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But what does reasonable doubt mean, and to what degree is a jury bound by its principles? We cannot guarantee the prosecution, the defense, the presiding judge, and especially the accused will adhere to any standard of judicial integrity. After all, Johnnie Cochran, who got his Juris Doctorate from Loyola Law School, sank his time and finances into the black hole, passed all the difficult exams, and met all the state-mandated requirements. Later that year, after encouraging his client to cease taking his arthritis medication to falsify evidence in open court, he secured immortality with that famous line:

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“If the mittens ain’t fittin’, you must get acquittin’.”

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Wait, that’s not right.

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Ah, “If the gloves don’t fit, you must acquit.”

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The gloves fit perfectly fine, even as Simpson did a half-hearted shrug to display the impossibility to the jury. Blood from the crime scene had warped their shape, shrinking them to a size just small enough that Simpson could create “reasonable doubt” that he wore them the night of the murders of his ex-wife and her “friend.”

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Not that it mattered. Even if the gloves had fit, the prosecution would never have convinced a majority Black jury, three years after the L.A. riots, that Simpson, a Black man, football legend, and cultural icon, was guilty of murder.

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Prosecutors will fudge exhibits. Defense attorneys will falsify evidence. Judges will exploit publicity for attention; the outside world will create pressure for a verdict that may or may not be accurate. All a jury can do is adhere to that most sacred principle: guilt must get proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

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If taken at face value, 12 Angry Men accomplishes what all movies should: it makes us want to watch it. We may not view it for everything it wants to be, but we can enjoy it conceptually. A young man is on trial for his father's murder and is at the mercy of 12 jurors with varying degrees of interest in justice. After the initial vote, the lone dissenter, Juror 8, wants to talk. The substance of that discussion will send a boy to the electric chair or home to live out his life in peace.

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As a courtroom drama, it compels us to each development. Our curiosity gets piqued as Juror 8 theorizes that the man couldn’t have walked from his bedroom and uses diagrams and exhibits to make his various points. We feel drawn in by the subtle cues of pit stains and heavy breathing even after simple movements, feeling the stuffy atmosphere in which an already contentious debate gets intensified. We are intrigued by the empathy one elder statesman shows another, imbuing a witness with the perspective necessary to understand his motivations. However, we feel frustrated by how often that intrigue gets negated by ineptitude.

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12 Angry Men serves itself well, often in the same moments it undermines its cause, establishing credibility before tossing it aside. A judge speaks on the stakes of the verdict as though there are no stakes at all, his tired tone indicating assuredness. The casual recognition of the inevitable is just as potent a tool as the sad sap gaze from a doomed teenager that slowly fades into the scorching jury room. The film has much to say about the value of honor and duty against overwhelming odds, the importance of impartiality when upholding principles, and the role archetypes play in influencing opinion. Unfortunately, it cannot accomplish these feats on a shaky foundation. You cannot ask us to look inward on principle when you manipulate us with the face of a scared boy awaiting damnation. You cannot ask us to believe in a man willing to negotiate his values. You cannot expect us to examine our platitudes when the man dissecting them cares more for disarming the opposition than convincing them there are no sides.

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A vote is life just as much as it is death, and Juror 8 accepts this as he plants his flag on the short hill of principle. The men feel assured of the boy’s guilt, and Juror 8 refuses to send him to his death without discussing the matter thoroughly. Alas, only a brief discussion will suffice, and he quickly concedes potential defeat by allowing for another vote. The man whose ideals fuel every second of societal dissection the film seeks to inspire is willing to negotiate.

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The film sacrifices his integrity to employ narrative devices that do more to contrive support than comment on who we are, how we allow our values to distort the word, and what we must endure to value life.

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We cheer as Juror 9, an older man acting as the group’s most vocal moralist, spares Juror 8’s crusade by changing his decision at the first vote. We rejoice as Juror 8 improbably reveals a knife just like the one introduced into evidence as the supposed murder weapon. Anything that supports his cause gets a build-up or dramatic reveal. He jams a switchblade into a table, an old man beams at the prospect of exploiting another juror’s eyesight to undermine his position, and he smirks while turning a deadly phrase back at the man who defended it to “prove” its innocuousness.

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The film rarely forces the defectors to reconsider their initial position, so every development gets rewarded as a victory for justice instead of a point made to cast doubt. The term is “reasonable doubt” for a reason. It cannot get established with estimations of walking speed, guesses at who wears glasses and when, and if they got put on or how fast trains move and when. We cannot condemn based on ideas, but we cannot absolve just the same.

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As such, 12 Angry Men suffers from incorrectly choosing its protagonist. Juror 4 is a pragmatic stockbroker concerned only with facts and reason; he can make a statement more impactful than any Juror 8 could muster. He is free of all bias, is concerned with the “probable” instead of “possible,” and feels sure of his position only by not being convinced of the other. He has observed the proceedings, processed the information, drawn practical conclusions based upon a logical interpretation of that information, and supports his position based on that and nothing else.

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He is a man of true principle, though he lacks the showmanship as the more earnest Juror 8. But inside a man who truly takes the duty seriously, we have someone whose forcefulness resonates. His eventual withdrawal of a guilty vote feels earned, even if the means of convincing him were specific to him. It feels biased, but facts always ring truer when we relate to them individually. The matter of eyesight and timing may still be suspect, and thus the film fails the character. Still, he would never treat developments in theory as victories, only unveiling the necessary truth to reach the correct decision.

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If 12 Angry Men had treated itself as a commentary and less like a movie, it could have avoided these problems. It could have elevated itself above a generally entertaining film to become everything it wants to be so desperately. Unfortunately, it shows its devotion to a moral purity it falsely believes its primary source possesses. Aside from a brief moment of introspection when a fellow juror asks him how he will feel should he convince the rest and the boy turns out to be guilty, we get nothing from the man to show as much concern for principle as being right.

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He gets lost in the game, flipping the jurors one by one, employing the same loose tactics he once condemned. He partially banks his case on a limp observation of the accused’s intelligence, without any indication he has cause to assert it. He refuses to acknowledge that the boy could have learned and memorized the names of the films and the actors who starred in them. He gives a principled speech without consistently acting on the notions of the speech. We struggle to believe “I’m going to kill you” is as commonplace a saying as Juror 8 wants us to think and that the alleged frequency of its use is not suspect considering the presence of a dead body.

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Beneath the failed attempts at commentary and the general enjoyment lies a film with potential. It understands that we cannot underestimate one another the way Juror 8 does as he dismisses the foreman in a quick chat by the window before recognizing his virtue as he changes his vote. It understands (albeit briefly) that agreement is not enough, that matters of life and death cannot get handled loosely. It knows the stiff assertions and quick-fire retractions of the prejudiced, always bellowing on about “them” and how “they” are before letting us know that “some are okay” to deter our condemnation before employing nonsense to rationalize their bigotry. It knows the heartache of a tortured father, whose failure to do right by his son and the hurt their estrangement has caused can only get resolved one way... and not the way he believes.

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But its entire purpose gets predicated on knowing that if people are not committed to changing, they will not change. The duties we must perform, the values we must uphold, and the introspection in which we must engage are whispers in the wind if we are not inspired to act. Such evolutions do not occur over 96 minutes in a boiling deliberation room, especially not with such high stakes. We can only do all we can, and sometimes our best cannot inspire others to meet a higher standard. Would a man toss aside his ideals, corrupt though they may be, simply because strangers reject them? Would people admit to being wrong if such admittance meant owning up to who they are?

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No.

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12 Angry Men has the performances to convince us otherwise and the vague enjoyment to inspire fond memories, but not the staying power to make us forget how loosely it embraces its philosophy. It is a fantastic watch if one ignores the challenge but trying if one cannot. It does not make us reflect on O.J. Simpson “failing” to slip on a leather glove, the exploitative turn of phrase that helped galvanize a biased jury to acquittal, or the failure of ordinary people to do what was right, regardless of the conclusion to which that righteousness led them. It only inspires frustration that by failing to force that reflection, we can only look back at how close it came to realizing its ambitions. It did many things it wishes we did not know it did, but we can see it clearly when we drag it before the court and force it to try on its ideals and see if they fit. Unfortunately, Johnnie Cochran would be pleased.