A movie that takes place in a single room? All dialogue, and no car chases or explosions? 12 Angry Men might not seem like it has the makings for an amazing film, but whoever I’ve watched it with over the years has always been impressed.

This courtroom drama begins with eleven men eager to declare the defendant guilty – it’s an open-and-shut case, so why waste time? But the twelfth (Henry Fonda) isn’t so sure. And he isn’t willing to convict a man without carefully working through the evidence… even if other jurors were looking forward to their weekend plans.

So in the middle of a sweltering heat wave, stuck in close quarters with complete strangers, they start going through the evidence. 12 Angry Men is an absolutely fascinating look at how personal histories and prejudices can play a part in a jury decision.

Cautions

I can’t think of any concerns for this one. There’s some racism evident, but the worst language is a juror talking about “those kind of people.” This is an adult film in the sense that your smalls aren’t going to be interested. But it is a family-friendly film in the sense that kids of any age could be in the room with you and you wouldn’t need to worry about what they might see or hear.

The closest thing to a caution I can think of is that the 1997 remake has language problems (and isn’t close to as good anyway).

Conclusion

I don’t want to geek out on the film, but I will share one neat bit on its cinematography. If you’re like me, you don’t really note how a film is shot unless it’s bad and gets in the way of the story. That said, there is one neat trick used here you might want to look for: watch for how the camera slowly descends as the tension rises. We start just above eye-level, and by the time the climax arrives, lots of shots are now coming from below, giving jurors an ominous shadowed look. It’s cool what different camera angles can do.

But the reason you should watch it is for what it wrestles with. This is looking at the whole idea of justice, and how apathy, prejudice, and even people’s limited ability to logic things out, can shape the verdict. God has told us that it’d be better for a guilty person to go free than an innocent man be punished (that, and innocent until proven guilty, are the implications of texts like Deut. 17:6 and Deut. 19:15), but is that how our justice system works? In 12 Angry Men we’ve got a behind-the-scenes look with a man willing to stand against the room to do what’s right.

Check out the trailer below.

There are lots of layers in this intense courtroom drama. When the Saudi religious police uncover a secret church, Charles Reed, the American pastor, is tortured and killed, and his wife Sarah is beaten and deported on trumped-up drug charges. From there the action takes place both in an American court where lawyer Brad Carson helps Sarah bring suit against her torturer, and in Saudi Arabia, where the small church struggles to continue, their members fearful and shaken. The large law firm defending the torturer is willing to cheat, so what might their murderous client be willing to do? Sarah Reed’s team is growing to admire her courage but none of them share her Christian scruples, so what might they be willing to do behind her back to help her get justice?

I was struck by the missing obligatory conversion scene that is central to so much Christian fiction. Sarah’s legal team of Brad Carson and Leslie Connors weren’t Christian at the beginning of the book, and still weren’t at the end. That might not seem a feature in a Christian book; fictional though they may be, we don’t want our favorite characters heading towards hell. But because it happens so often, it’s quite the twist when we witness someone planting and watering, but don’t get to witness the harvest.

This quick read got me picking up the sequel Self Incrimination where Leslie is handed a copy of C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. It turns out that Singer wants the best for his characters too, but he’s more patient about it, waiting until book two for the reaping.

I wasn’t as fond of this sequel, not so much because it had the obligatory conversion scene, as that it had our two favorite lawyers defending a murder suspect who seemed guilty, guilty, guilty. And they are trying to get her off! Is that what the heroes of the story are supposed to do?

I don’t want to give too much away, so all I’ll note both lawyers aren’t Christian during most of the trial and trial preparation. So if they aren’t acting entirely right, maybe it’s because they don’t know what the right thing to do might be. Still, author Randy Singer doesn’t really help readers figure it out either, and ultimately the resolution is tainted by what seems sentimentality over justice.

To sum it up, I absolutely loved the first book and wasn’t as impressed with the sequel. If Directed Verdict has you looking for another great Singer courtroom drama I’d steer you to Rule of Law instead