12 Angry Men (1957)

 Sidney Lumet's "12 Angry Men"

Despite being an all-time classic, Sidney Lumet's 1957 courtroom drama "12 Angry Men" was a box office disappointment at the time of its release. Perhaps the main reason for this was the variety of color pictures that engulfed the market at the time, rendering American audiences spoiled to these visual spectacles. A black-and-white picture like "12 Angry Men," in which the entirety of the film's plot takes place in a single room, perhaps did not seem very attractive to commercial audiences. 

The plot of the film revolves around 12 men that must determine the guilt or innocence of a young 18-year-old boy on trial for stabbing his father to death. Most of the men believe him to be guilty, citing that the lawyers made the verdict obvious. However, one juror, Juror #8, believes that it's possible the boy did not kill his father. He thinks that, in order to send the boy to the electric chair, there needs to be indisputable proof. He spends the film trying to convince the other 11 jurors to treat the case with empathy and respect and to find reasonable doubt of the boy's guilt.

At the time of the film's release, McCarthyism was rampant in the American justice system. "12 Angry Men" offers a viewpoint to the viewer: consider that things aren't always black-and-white. People immediately labeled guilty aren't always guilty. All the jurors were ready and willing to send a possibly innocent young boy to the electric chair without a second thought or consideration to his innocence. Juror #8 implores his fellow men to have empathetic considerations. In doing so, the prejudices and biases of all the jurors against the boy are revealed, laying bare the truth of human folly in a justice system. 

I find "12 Angry Men" to be a timeless film. One that implores sympathy and empathy for other people. To void judgement, to believe in the possibility that the human soul is not utterly corrupted. That hearts and minds can change for the good. Morality and truth are sometime out of reach. But the best we can do as human beings is to believe in the goodness of each other and strive everyday to pull that out of us the best we can.