Twelve Angry Men Film Analysis

The film Twelve Angry Men (1957) exhibited the power of an eyewitness, the characteristics of the defendant, and the power of group influence that affects the jury. Throughout the film, the reliability of the eyewitness was questioned. There were two eyewitnesses in the movie, the old man, who lives in the apartment below of the crime scene, and the old woman, who lives across the street. According to the film, there is a possibility that the eyewitnesses misinformed the jury about the crime scene. Eyewitnesses may not be as reliable as they are thought to be. Eyewitnesses are humans, who are bound to make mistakes, and are prone to the misinformation effect. The old man had heard the young man threatened his father to kill him and the woman had witnessed the young …show more content…
One of the juror, Juror #3, passionately wanted to execute the young man for his deeds. This juror was unsympathetic due to his personal grudge. He did not have a good relationship with his son and his son left him; this young man reminded him of his son. Although Juror #3 insisted that he was basing his decision on facts, he brought personal matters into the jury even when the facts were refuted. The defendant exhibited similarities to Juror #3’s son, which led to the tendency of this juror to treat the defendant less favorably. Another important fact was the defendant’s ethnicity and low socioeconomic class. Most of the jurors were mostly middle-aged, white males from the middle-class status. These descriptions were different from the defendants, which made it difficult for the jurors to be sympathetic to the defendant. Juror #5, however, had experience living in a slum area, and so he could sympathize a little for the young man, and after several votes, he voted “not guilty” for the defendant. This example exhibits that if the juror are similar, the juror would tend to sympathize with the