The histrionics don't add up for '12'

A bigoted juror (Sergey Garmash) can't hear the voice of reason in "12."

A bigoted juror (Sergey Garmash) can't hear the voice of reason in "12."

12

This is the story of 12 jurors discussing a verdict to pass on an 18-year-old Chechen boy--whether he is guilty of the first-degree murder of ...

Rating: PG-13 for violent images, disturbing content, thematic material, brief sexual and drug references, and smoking

Length: 159 minutes

Released: March 4, 2009 Limited

Cast: Sergei Makovetsky, Sergei Garmash, Aleksei Petrenko, Yuri Stoyanov, Sergei Gazarov

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov

Writer: Nikita Mikhalkov, Vladimir Moiseyenko

More info and showtimes »

Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhalkov updates Sidney Lumet's half-century old "12 Angry Men" with the more simply titled "12."

Although Mikhalkov's version reflects contemporary times in his homeland, with particular attention to the social effects of the Russia-Chechnya conflict, he follows the same basic construction of the 1957 film: Twelve jurors are sequestered to determine the fate of a minority teenager accused of patricide, and after a preliminary vote of 11-1 in favor of conviction, much angst and revelation is shared as the 12 men learn about each other and ponder the details of the case.

Mikhalkov's film, an Academy Award nominee last year for best foreign language picture, opens with the jurors getting escorted to their makeshift deliberation "room," a school gym next to the courthouse, which is undergoing renovation. At first, it's a perfect setting for the men, who are playful and giddy about what they expect will be a quick verdict and release from their civic duty. But when a show of hands reveals one dissenter (Sergey Makovetsky), the mirthful mood fades.

That juror says he's not suggesting the defendant isn't guilty, he only thinks it's proper that, given a guilty verdict will condemn the boy to life in prison, they at least not be hasty.

Guided by the even-keeled foreman (played by Mikhalkov himself), the remaining jurors set aside their impatience and start talking. Each man has his turn, and each delivers a personal story that in some way recasts the case, making the boy's guilt seem ever more doubtful - much to the rage of a bigoted juror (Sergey Garmash), who can't believe the others might let the "stinking Chechen dog" get away with murdering his adoptive father, a Russian army officer.

Eventually the 12 middle-age and old men, who initially seemed to be an anonymous group unified by the intention to convict, reveal themselves to be as different as the months of the year.

Powerful and provocative as the story is, "12" is quite stagey, which isn't surprising considering that the source material was a play by Reginald Rose. Mikhalkov attempts to get around the built-in restrictions by making the deliberation area an expansive, fully equipped gym that gives the men space to move about, fight and roughhouse. He also develops the defendant, with key shots of him pacing around in his holding cell and flashbacks of his devastating, violent past.

The filmmaker additionally employs an evocative score, atmospheric lighting and such symbolic imagery as a bird trapped in the gym with the men. But his efforts are stymied by the endless soliloquies that stretch the film to two and a half long hours and beg the question: Would this many disparate men really have this many relevant, lengthy stories, and, coincidentally, the same histrionic style of delivery?

The problems are perhaps inescapably compounded for non-Russian speaking viewers who might miss many of Mikhalkov's nuances because they're forced to read an endless stream of wordy subtitles as the protracted speeches just keep coming.

The resolution of "12" is rewarding and a bit unexpected, but it's too much work to get there.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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