12

This is a masterpiece. The beauty of the film is in its simplicity. Almost the whole thing takes place in a high school gymnasium, around a long table around which the twelve jurors sit. Every performance is superb, including that of the director, who plays the foreman, and Sergei Garmash as the cab driver juror. The screenplay follows the tortuous deliberations, in which every juror has at least one soliloquy. Excellent camera-work and lighting augment the heavy drama.

It is more likely in Russia today that twelve whites would end up forming a jury, although less so that no women would be serving. Director Nikita Mikhalkov evidently chose to remain faithful that much to the American movie on which his is based, Twelve Angry Men. One wonders whether it might have been more interesting with women jurors contributing their anguish to the picture, and since this version is simply titled 12, the possibility of including a woman or two (as would be realistic in this day and age) was presumably open. Also, the film is not realistic in the sense that Russia does not have a jury system, therefore this situation would not arise in real life. What Mikhalkov was probably trying to do was to create a morality play, and this he does magnificently. These criticisms are therefore minor. This is a wonderful piece of work.

As the film is starting, for those who know Russian, one sees the logo of "Patriotic Films." This may cause groans among those who know more about Russia. Patriotic Russians today seem reactionary and defensive to many Westerners. But Mikhalkov does not dance around the sensitive race issue at the core of the plot, a Chechen boy accused of murdering his stepfather, a Russian military officer, and facing life in prison. Mikhalkov's main interest really is in truth, justice and honesty. The idea of these qualities as components of "patriotism" actually lies at the core of this story, and it is brilliantly executed. By the end, if you can suppress cynicism and believe that this many men of conscience could assemble in one place in Russia today, you will be moved to tears. This is a major achievement.

I found this movie to be a theatrical feast, but with a couple of nagging annoyances.

I want to get the annoying parts off my chest first, because chronologically that's how I encountered the movie. It seems to me that Russians have never mastered the art of sound mixing. Whether in old Soviet films or in this modern Russian one, there is always something not quite right with the sound.

As the film began I found that the background noises were much louder than the speech of the actors. The sounds of doors slamming, children yelling, workers working, and so on were loud and clear, but the actors' voices were practically whispers in that maelstrom. I don't know why that is. Could it be only in the foreign, sub-titled version of the film? I don't see complaints about the sound levels from anyone else, but I'm pretty sure it's not just me. I desperately wanted to listen to the Russian dialog, but the low audio level of the voices forced me to read the sub-titles throughout most of the film. It was a bit like walking with a small stone in my shoe.

Not having seen the "12 Angry Men" movie on which this current film was based, I was forced to accept "12" on its own merits. Thus, I experienced this film not as a remake of a previous movie, but as a filmed a stage play with phenomenal actors. Perhaps as a result, I unequivocally enjoyed this acting extravaganza. There may have been some occasional carpet chewing, but overall the performances were astounding. I certainly wish the IMDb list of players had more information about who played which role and had more biographical information about the individual actors. Perhaps someone familiar with Russian films and actors could throw more light on the matter. Much the same criticism, of course, could apply to IMDb's level of information on foreign films in general.

Frankly, I didn't take the matter of the guilt or innocence of the "accused" very seriously. With all the theorizing the jurors were doing, and with the serious lack of real information for us in the audience, there was absolutely no way to determine real guilt or innocence. If anything, the flashback scenes were more confusing than enlightening. So, as far as I was concerned, it was the jurors, particularly the "Great Russians" among them - who were at the center of the film. Watching their "paralysis by analysis" was the real treat, irrespective of whether they reached the right conclusion in the end. As far as that conclusion is concerned, I have no idea what Mikhalkov means by it. His own screen character was obviously implying that he has a unique insight into things, intimating that perhaps he had been at one time in the KGB, GRU, or had been a member of some other allegedly all-knowing organization? Frankly, this was a bit off-putting and seemed to imply that the State and its workers knew things that the average citizen just hadn't a need to know. In any event, despite having a relatively modest role for most of the film, at the end Mikhalkov came a little too much to the fore for my taste. I'd be very happy to read a Russian reviewer's explanation of Mikhalkov's character.

A word or two about the depiction of Chechens. The music, dancing, and overwhelming maleness of Chechen culture were solidly, if briefly, presented. One certainly cannot stereotype all Chechen men as being similar to the Chechen fighters depicted in this film, but the characterization of those fighters was phenomenal. In this film the Chechens fighters' raw power to intimidate, threaten, and attack their enemies those was palpable. I'm aware that even Alexander Solzhenitsyn praised the indomitable culture of Chechens in the Gulag. They just never, ever, yielded to the Soviets.

So, I rate this film very highly. Perhaps I'm missing the film's more subtle propaganda that some here have mentioned, but that's something I can continue to think more about. I highly recommend "12."

The movie is bipolar. The upsides: great performances by many great actors; a view that the movie provides into the minds of contemporary Russians; and watching 12 post-post-Soviet (yet born and raised Soviet) people engaged in the a very Western activity, where their universal human feelings are intermixed with ways of thinking and arguing that are skewed by the history and problems of Russian society. Having characters give monologues in a single-room setting works very well for the theatrically-trained actors. Also, the discussion of society's problems and human responsibilities is refreshingly serious, in a big contrast to most post-Soviet expression, which tends to be extremely cynical (as argued quiet well by Efremov's character).

Downsides: certain characters are shallow caricatures clearly used to express Mikhalkov's personal tastes; way too many stretches in the plot; and the ending/punchline. Mikhalkov turns everything on its head in the end, very unconvincingly trying to argue that "freedom is slavery" and negating any civic benefit that the movie could have. This argument is basically a restatement of his political goals, most recently expressed off-screen by an open letter to Putin in the name of "all Russian artists" begging him to stay another term. Ironically, the argument is presented so weakly and crudely that Mikhalkov ends up shooting himself in a foot.

This movie again proves that Mr. Mikhalkov is Genius and Russia should be proud of such man like him. This movie is truly a masterpiece because of great acting, interesting story, and beautiful conversation scenes. I recommend such movie for a viewer, who is tired from popular Hollywood big-budget films (i'm not saying they are bad) and wants to try something new, unexpected but enjoyable. If you are intelligent, you will like this film and you will be amazed of how professionally it is made and at the end of a movie you surely won't be thinking "why i spent almost two and a half hours of my life watching this?".

So, i recommend not to be scared of the length and 20 minutes of boredom at the beginning and watch this Masterpiece in every detail.

Some of the IMDb commenters are a bit tough on this film for having some characters that verged on caricature. I see their point, but I think it is a bit unfair here. Given that this was an homage to the original (on its 50th anniversary), Mikhalkov had to take its basic plot as his foundation. That necessarily drained much of the drama from the story—-we know which way the countdown is going to proceed. It also forced him to deal with all 12 men.

Thus, what can he do to keep it interesting? He (1) features the ensemble acting—-terrific even to me as a non-Russian speaker, (2) highlighted the characters' weaknesses, including some human and Russian traits that have to be a bit outsized, (3) added a detached but affecting commentary on brutality of the Chechnya war and the tendency for Muscovites to see Chechens as monolithic, and (4) threw in a few plot wrinkles at the end. Given the constraints he faced, I thought it was a fine adaptation—and was thoroughly engrossing. Mikhalkov himself, as the jury foreman, is a commanding screen presence as well.