★★★★★
There’s no more perfect chamber piece, minute-for-minute, than this tense, smart and devastatingly revealing courtroom drama. Sidney Lumet’s film stars Henry Fonda as the sole juror in a dozen who refuses to send a young Puerto Rican man to his death for killing his father. Fonda believes there is reasonable doubt in the case and American law requires a unanimous verdict. Reluctantly, the jury (and the in-your-face camera) hole up to deliberate in a back room on what seems to be the hottest day of the year in New York.
The genius of this tale, based on a teleplay by Reginald Rose, is that although the men in suits are mostly unnamed and go by number, “Juror 3” etc, their characters are established one