A few months ago, two friends and myself participated in a film quiz. Unfortunately, half of the question were about films before 1970. This is an area of cinema of which we all knew basically nothing. I've seen a Hitchcock film or two, but we've never taken the time to watch all classic movies everyone always keeps raving about. So what to do about that? We started a little club and aim to watch one old/classic/vintage film a week.
Week 1: 12 Angry Men (1957) ★★★☆☆
This film is number 6 in the IMDB Top 250. So we has very high expectation. It's not like we didn't know the story, because of the many parodies (for example in Inside Amy Shumer (2013 - ) and Family Guy (1999 - ), but we did feel like we had to have watched it sometime. To make a very long story short: it's all right. I liked it, but I (definitely) didn't love it. Personally, I don't think it's the sixth best movie I've ever seen. I liked Henry Fonda (who is indeed the father of Jane Fonda), but that's basically the only character. Probably because he's quite rational. And he would have been a democrat, for sure. There are handful of memorable men and a bunch of guys that didn't necessarily have to be there.
In short, 12 Angry Men is about twelve men who have to decide if a young man is guilty or not. Everyone is convinced of the evidence, except for Henry Fonda. He questions his guilt and tries to convince the others not to judge too quickly and impulsively. I guess that the actors are good, but I always have trouble reviewing performances in older films. Their acting is, in their time, fine, but if they would be in a contemporary film they would be totally over-the-top bad actors (much like Nicolas Cage). I also hear a lot that these actors, like Henry Fonda, like Humphry Boogaart have such amazing screen presence. Again, back in the 50's these with middle-aged men would be a joy to watch, but these men wouldn't have quite their charm in a much more diverse (well, at least more diverse than 60 years ago) group of famous actors nowadays. Being born in the 90's and used to such a different era of cinema, it's very difficult to review these older movies.
12 Angry Men is quite short, which was a good think. It's a little over 90 minutes. Some moments the film are really slow, but the majority kept us entertained. The ending is, though it's fun to watch, a little much. When all pieces of the puzzle fall perfectly into place. It's not really realistic, but I do like the concept of thinking rationally about justice (I still cannot believe America's system in which a group of men actually can send a man to jail. The electric chair in 50's (and in 2016 when Trump would be elected)). There are some other minor details which I didn't like. For example the gigantic bathroom, that was at least as big as 'room' itself. Also, there are a few disturbing close-ups of Joseph Sweeney. But these were all minor parts.
I think it was a good film. Not amazing, but good. It didn't put us off and it did encourage us to watch more 'classics'. But we did (secretly) hope that there would be better films out there. Or at least films that (somehow) wouldn't feel so dated.
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