Good Movie Ruined by Left-Wing Bias and Smugness.
12 Angry Men is entertaining, mostly well acted, and worth a watch (although it has no replay value unless you are a Lib-Left luvvie). It could have been far better but, from the outset, the film was designed only to take a pot-shot at the Right, and promote a Left Wing Progressive viewpoint as the absolute truth. This story is hardcore propaganda and, judging by its score on IMDB, has succeeded in fooling a great number of people. What is interesting to me is that the Left-wing's brainwashing started so early. Hollywood is still churning out the same bias today (go and read my Dark Knight review).
The movie has a very interesting premise: An open-and-shut case is called in to question when one man on the twelve-man jury slowly convinces the others that the eighteen year old on trial for the murder of his father may, in fact, be innocent. That's got some real potential, hasn't it? Sadly, the gone-in-the-head Leftist who wrote this did what I feared he would: loaded the dice and peddled a Leftist agenda - namely one that excuses criminals of their actions and seeks to end the death penalty. That's the film's overwhelming goal. It wants the audience to come away from the movie, not with a greater appreciation of the legal system, but with the view that the death penalty should be abolished and that anyone who objects to this is a deluded, little bigot. I'll come to why this film is dangerous to society later but, for now, let's look at the facts we are given:
[Spoilers from here on]
1. An 18 year old is on trial for the murder of his father. He has no alibi. The alibi he gave to police (that he was in a theatre the whole time) fell apart when he could not recall anything about the movies that were showing - even their names.
2. There are two main witnesses: One saw the defendant leaving the scene of the crime (and heard the event); the other saw the murder take place through a window and identified the defendant. The defendant was also heard shouting in anger 'I'm gonna kill you', the same day as the murder.
3. The knife (with a very rare design) used in the murder is the same knife that the defendant had bought earlier and was carrying around. His friends testified to this effect.
4. The defendant is an habitual criminal who has had numerous run-ins with the law, including two arrests for knife fighting. He is said to be 'real handy with a knife'.
5. The defendant has a clear motive: His father was repeatedly violent and abusive towards him, and had beaten him regularly (with fists) since he was five years of age, including the day of the murder. He had also threatened his father that very day.
I was intrigued. Why does this one juror believe the defendant may not be guilty? How could he convince the rest that there is reasonable doubt? Despite the fact I feared these questions would receive fob-offs, I was still hopeful an intelligent investigation would be crafted around them. But no. Straight away, the film deliberately loads the dice by having certain jurors holding prejudiced or otherwise undesirable traits, while the dissenting voice is calm, collected, and supremely open-minded. That's a cliche, and a very common Leftist tactic (you'll see it a lot on shows like Star Trek).
The film takes each of the facts above and finds an alternate explanation for them (usually absurd), such as the knife could have fallen out of the defendants pocket and the true murderer used an identical knife (this is the fantastic explanation given by our Leftist hero). The film has a moronic moment when the 'hero' pulls out a knife he has bought (illegally), which appears identical to the one in question. The idea being that it isn't so rare after all. What a cheap cop-out (and absurd on so many other levels).
There are also a few silly moments, like the jury discussing why the defendant would come home a few hours later if he had indeed done the crime. Not one of them mentions that the defendant lives there and would have to come back home in order to allay fears that he was the murderer. It's part of an alibi. It's what any murderer would do in this situation. What else is he going to do, disappear and hope that the police don't find that a tad suspicious? Nearly every explanation given in favour of the defendant is absurd or complete conjecture.
When you string all the known facts together, the chances of them all being explained away in a fashion that exonerates the defendant is literally millions to one. It's so implausible that no sane jury would acquit. But the writer wants this to happen, so it does (and 12-0 in favour, just in case you missed the point). I love it when writers do that. Don't you?
At one point, the following dialogue takes place:
"No-one can know a thing like that; this isn't an exact science."
"That's right, it isn't."
Okay, then, let's just forget putting people on trial because we can hardly ever be 100% sure that they did the crime in question, can we?
So, let me finally come to why this kind of thinking is dangerous to a society: The number of victims created by having no deterrent, or by allowing dangerous criminals to go free, is FAR GREATER than the absolute minority case where an innocent person is found guilty. This is something that the Progressives can never get into their heads, largely because they usually live in rich areas, sheltered from harsher life, and have never been on the receiving end of badness. Well, I have. Some people cannot be reasoned with and are far too broken to be rehabilitated. They are like a dangerous dog - and we all know what we do to those. We don't try to change the nature of a dangerous dog because we know it's futile, and we know that by ignoring the dangerous dog, we are just risking more innocent lives. This really isn't rocket science, it's just that the Leftist types (who have a huge stranglehold on the media/TV) refuse to budge, and muddy the waters with their insane Progressive agenda. Films like this create a huge problem for the law abiding and innocent - one that is largely being ignored.
People cheering this movie are cheering for a violent thug, who got away with first-degree murder. It's not hip, it's just dumb. Wake up.
My rating: 3/5
