Monday, January 06, 2025

"12 Angry Men" (1997): review

Top, L-R: Mykelti Williamson, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza, Edward James Olmos, William Petersen, Ossie Davis
Bottom, L-R: Jack Lemmon, George C. Scott, Hume Cronyn, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Dorian Harewood

[WARNING: spoilers.]

The work 12 Angry Men has an interesting history. It started off, not as a stage play, but as a teleplay written by Reginald Rose in 1954 and aired on TV that same year. In 1955, it was rewritten and performed as a stage play; later on, other TV/film/stage versions of the play have appeared in English and other languages, and in other countries than the United States. The version I watched is a made-for-TV 1997 production for the cable channel Showtime, directed by William Friedkin ("The Exorcist," "The French Connection," "To Live and Die in L.A."). It stars celebrities who were prominent in the 1990s, including Mary McDonnell, Courtney B. Vance, Ossie Davis, George C. Scott, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Dorian Harewood, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza, Jack Lemmon, Hume Cronyn, Mykelti Williamson, Edward James Olmos, and William Petersen.

The story begins with the judge in a murder trial (McDonnell) giving final instructions to the twelve male jurors who have been tasked with evaluating the evidence presented to them of a teenage Latino boy from the slums who is accused of plunging a knife into his abusive father's chest, killing him. The judge warns that the verdict, whether guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous (as stated or implied by the Sixth Amendment). So instructed, the jurors adjourn to the jury room, where most of the rest of the story occurs. The jury foreman (Vance) conducts the proceedings as calmly and as fairly as he can. Most of the jurors are unnamed until the very last scene, when Jurors 8 (Lemmon) and 9 (Cronyn) tell each other their surnames. The deliberation begins with a vote that is 11-1 guilty. Juror 8 is the holdout, having doubts about the solidity of the case against the kid. As the discussion gets under way, and as votes are repeatedly taken, more and more of the jury, except for the stubborn Juror 3 (Scott), become convinced that there is, in fact, reasonable doubt. Tempers flare and personal facts are revealed during deliberations; Juror 3 is prejudiced against the kid because of the poor relationship he's had with his own son, whom he views as a rebellious piece of trash. Punishing the Latino kid will serve, for Juror 3, as a proxy for punishing his own son.

As you might expect with all of the thespian firepower on display, the story is well acted in this version. My understanding is that the script was somewhat modernized for the 90s version to update references from the original 50s version. It's a smart script, too: at several points, some of the characters tire of the discussion and voice a desire to stop and declare a hung jury, which would amount to a mistrial, meaning the case would have to be re-tried with a different set of jurors. Juror 7 (Danza) makes the mistake of seeming to change his vote from "guilty" to "not guilty" simply because he's exasperated and wants to attend a baseball game later that evening. This incenses Juror 11 (Olmos), who wonders whether Juror 7 even cares about the life of the kid. While I've never served on a jury, I felt that "12 Angry Men" was a plausible exploration of what an actual jury deliberation might look like. This being an ensemble production, each juror gets a few moments to shine. Themes of racial prejudice, class conflict, personal psychology, and simple ennui all come into play.

I did have to wonder, though, whether this version of the play would work in today's politically correct environment. There were some moments that struck me as inadvertently amusing, such as when the German-American Juror 4 (Mueller-Stahl) tells the hotheaded Juror 10 (Williamson), a black man apparently prejudiced against Latinos and people from the slums, to shut his "filthy mouth." Imagine that scene playing out with a German accent. How would you read the racial politics these days? Being a relic from an older decade, I didn't get caught up in the political incorrectness, but I'm intensely curious as to how this script might be rewritten for today's sensitive, delicate public. I also have to wonder whether a 1990s-era jury would have been plausibly all male. Some versions of this play have included female jurors, leading to the title change of 12 Angry Jurors.

It's been years since we read and discussed 12 Angry Men in English class. I don't recall that we ever acted the play out, but we may have had a sit-down "reader's theater" run-through of it. As with the Odyssey, this is a work that I barely remember, so it was good to have the refresher. This was an excellent version of the original, too, although some parts, especially George C. Scott's tearful rant at the very end, not to mention the fact that different characters would stand up at regular intervals to speechify, struck me as too self-consciously theatrical. A younger version of me, caught up in the dramatic awesomeness of the play, might have thought differently. Of course, this is a play first and foremost, and as such, it's a showcase for actors and acting. Anyone can definitely appreciate it on that level.

The play's didactic stress on the concept of reasonable doubt is perhaps the most important thing that I take away from this. If I were ever to serve on a jury (not likely since I live in South Korea), this movie would echo in my head during jury deliberations.

And it only just occurred to me that Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos starred in "Battlestar Galactica" together. What a tangled web we weave.


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