The Success of Twelve Angry Men as a Thriller

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The Success of Twelve Angry Men as a Thriller ‘Twelve Angry Men’ is a gripping thriller despite the limitations of the film. The black and white 1957 film is packed with suspense even though the film has many restrictions in it. These limitations are things such the setting, the action/special effects, the props, the lack of costume changes, the cast are all twelve middle aged unattractive white men and finally the plot of the film is quite dull and uninteresting. Regardless of these limitations the director, Sidney Lumet, still makes it an exciting thriller by focusing the film on interesting memorable characters with different personalities and back grounds. By being extremely original with his ideas, by creating tension with the setting- makes a claustrophobic effect, by getting the audience involved and thinking on the plot of the jury decision because it judges on the life of a teenage boy and finally by making a wide range of camera shots. On paper ‘Twelve Angry Men’ would sound like a very dull film. To bring the film to life it needs a great cast of actors which ‘Twelve Angry Men’ has. The film is full of realistic unforgettable characters that all have different personalities and backgrounds. There are four dominant characters in the film, juror no.3- Lee J. Cobb, juror no.4- E.G Marshall, juror no.8- Henry Fonda and lastly juror no.10- Ed Begley. Juror no.3 is a very aggressive irritated man who has no doubt that the boy is guilty simply based entirely on his personal emotional feelings rather than facts. Throughout the film the audience gets to know about the history of juror no.3, about his wrecked relationship with his son and his hatred over children. He believes that children don’t have enough respect for their parents, he quotes to the rest of the jury, ‘kids these days, huh, when I was a kid I use to call my father sir’. Juror no.3 is extremely aggressive, every time he talks he shouts the loudest amongst the people and usually shrugs off the

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