12 Angry Men
The title 12 Angry Men is a bit misleading. Not all of the twelve jurors in the movie are angry. In fact only one seems angry throughout the whole hour and thirty minutes. Perhaps 12 Different Men would be more appropriate. Because that is all this film is about. It shows how impossible it is for twelve people from a variety of different backgrounds to completely agree on something. People think differently. Some people make mistakes thinking and some have trouble thinking in important situations.
The basic plot of 12 Angry Men is relatively simple. A jury in the 1950s has to reach an anonymous verdict for murder in the first degree. Besides a few scenes in the beginning and end, the entire movie is shot inside of the jury room. I was surprised that the film didn’t begin with more from the actual trial. Instead I presume that the director, Sidney Lumet, wanted the jurors to tell the trial from their twelve perspectives. By doing this, the viewer felt exactly like each of the jurors and had to take information based on what the jurors said. The movie is basically a constant conversation between two groups of the jury: the group who believes the eighteen year old defendant is guilty and the group that has reasonable doubt in the defendant’s guilt. Throughout the movie the size of these two groups are always changing. In the first vote the jury is 11-1 in favor of the defendant’s guilt. Against incredible odds however, the lone Juror #8 (Henry Fonda’s character), sticks to his “not guilty” vote and offers reasons to doubt the defendant’s guilt. The rest of the film comprised basically of Juror #8 bringing up multiple discrepancies in the case which lead to the steady addition of jurors to his side of the spectrum.
Juror #8 starts his rebuttal by disproving the old man’s story by physically acting out his story inside the actual courtroom. He proves that the neighbor must have heard someone come down the stairs and only assumed it had been the suspected boy. This point made early on in the film, sways a few jurors to his side. Later on in the movie, Juror #8 disproves the lady’s story by pointing out the small detail the imprints on the sides of her nose, left by her glasses. In proving that she wears glasses he instilled in two of the three jurors (#4 and #11) the reasonable doubt that she ever saw the crime as she said is happened. The final juror to be convinced is Juror #3. He is the toughest of all to crack because of his refusal to see things the other way. He is a very one-sided, “my way or the highway” character. In the end, however, he breaks down into a sobbing fit with a photo of his son whom he mistreated and says he changes his verdict to “not guilty.”
Throughout the entire film there are many references to the materiel we learned on the subject of reason in the third week of class. There are examples of both the “Five Common Thinking Errors” and either following or straying from the “Five Steps to Critical Thinking.”
The old man’s story is disproved by Juror #8 using the thinking error of “False or Vague Reasons.” He said that he ran to his door in a certain amount of time to arrive just in time to see the suspect running down the stairs. Well, Juror #8 disproved this premise because with this man’s limp it would have had to take longer, making the conclusion, that he saw the boy, false as well. The woman’s story is similarly disproved.
A perfect example of both ad hominem and “red herring” involves Juror #10, the retired garage owner and Juror #11, the immigrant watchmaker. Arguing over the case, Juror #10 veers off the subject and goes off on how immigrants come in, thinking they know more than Americans, and take their jobs, etc.
Juror #3, along with many of the other jurors, breaks one of the five steps to critical thinking. He doesn’t “look for different perspectives.” But, of his defense, many people are this way. It is hard to accept the ideas of others sometimes. That is probably why a hung jury is so common in today’s judicial system.
Humility is interesting trait to judge the jurors by. The least humble men of the group are those who hold onto their “guilty” verdict the longest. These are men like Juror #3 and Juror #4. Those with the most humility like Juror #8, Juror #9, and Juror #11 are the first three to realize that there is sufficient reasonable doubt in the case. This proves that being humble leads to making wise critical choices.
Probably the most important step to critical thinking illustrated in this film is the necessity of knowing the facts. Juror #8 disproves two facts that lead to the conversion of the remaining 11 jurors. Once the true facts are known, the jury, as a whole makes the correct decision.
Set apart from the “Five Common Thinking Errors” and the “Five Steps to Critical Thinking” are the problems of stereotyping and “herd need.” Juror #5 was raised in the slum and is quick argue with the jurors who condemn the boy because of his upbringing in the slum. Juror #12 is the only juror to change his mind three times (guilty to innocent to guilty to innocent) He does this because he likes to follow the crowd and doesn’t think for himself.
In conclusion, 12 Angry Men teaches a lot about making decisions based on reason and conscience, and not using rash judgment and stereotypes. God does not call us to have blind faith. We are to have faith in what is reasonable. This film teaches us how to reason.