12 Angry Men (1957)

12 Angry Men (1957)

Introduction

The movie '12 Angry Men' is an American drama film which is an extended feature version of a teleplay by Reginald Rose. The movie focuses on a murder case, and the jury of 12 men mostly middle aged belonging from middle class is been called to hear the murder case and take deliberate decision. It is a murder case of a son and father where the son has been accused of killing his father with a knife. The jury that has been formed consists of twelve judges. Eleven judges out of twelve consider the 18 year old boy guilty of killing his father. Only one judge Henry Fonda Juror no.8 thinks that the little boy is innocent. During the movie, the other eleven judges want Henry to change his decision and vote. The reason why they wanted Henry to change his decision was only unanimous decision need to be reached to deliver the final verdict of the case (Hans, 2007).

The whole discussion went through many arguments and gradually the other eleven jurors who considered the little boy guilty changed their decision and agree with Henry Fonda the only judge that withhold that the accused boy was not guilty and is innocent. Hence, in the end all the 12 juror agree upon holding out with one juror decision of convicting that the guy is not guilty and should be released (Papke, 2007).

Patterns of Persuasion and Conformity

Henry Fonda, Juror no.8 was the only juror who did fair hearing to the murder case. His decisions were not only taken being neutral in fact, were based on some reasonable doubts for which he wanted others to rethink and get convinced. Henry tried to pursue the other eleven judges with the same tactics adopted by Cobb, Juror no.3. Both Henry ...