12 [Film Review]

✭✭✭

     Making a remake of any classic is always a risky move. No matter what, the remake will be judged based on the standards set by the old film. Some people (myself not included) believe that the remake has to have some new idea, some new point to make. I don't believe so, I believe that it can often simply be a modern refreshment of the same story. 

     Though all films are meant to be judged individually and without opinions based on what the film is based on, I'm going to be reviewing this by many of the ideas of the original, 12 Angry Men, at least in some ways.

     Nikita Mikhalkov's 12 manages to retain the emotion and ideas of the original, but it also is far weaker than Sidney Lumet's masterpiece, due to some minor changes. Among these are the fact that in this story, there is no death penalty. That raised the stakes in the original, and thus lowers the stakes here. All the characters are debating in the end is if the defendant should go to jail or not, a far lesser penalty than death.

     Also, throughout the film there are intrusions, interruptions showing flashbacks and some of the outside world. But part of what made 12 Angry Men so intense was the fact that after the very brief intro, once we get into the small room, we never leave. We don't get any glimpses of the outside world. This serves to raise the pressure, as does the fact that it's the hottest day of the year in that film. We also don't see or know really anything about the defendant's past, and thus all we can really rely on is what the jury knows. That's something that's lacking here.

     But on the positive side, the film is incredibly entertaining. The cinematography is remarkable, and rather entertaining by itself with some incredible long shots portraying conversations and monologues that are equally entertaining. The stories told by the characters are often emotional and are always relevant to the case at hand in some way or another (and if they aren't immediately relevant, that's addressed by other characters). 

     So really, though 12 lacks a lot of what 12 Angry Men had, its still a decent remake, visually splendid, emotionally heavy and entertaining for all of it's one-hundred and fifty-nine minute run time. The performances are powerful and often, angry, in the same spirit as its basis.