MovieChat Forums > 12 Angry Men (1957) Discussion > Cheap Plot Contrivance

Cheap Plot Contrivance

posted 8 years ago by Pbaumannjr-775-71695
4 replies | jump to latest

At the risk of being sac religious this movie employs a script contrivance that I think eliminates it from the list of classics. The jurors that were the most prejudiced or irresponsible had the most disagreeable personalities. This seems like a cheap way for the author to get his point across. I would be much more impressed if they had a pleasant personalities but I still got the point. I see this often in movies and it always seems simplistic....like the scriptwriter can't think of a better way to say things so he takes a shortcut.

[–] karlkuehl 8 years ago

They all look the same to me ... 12 old white men in shirts and ties.

[–] stevenackerman69 8 years ago

The idea of the story was that we don't leave our prejudices at the door, although we are supposed to. Some of the jury members couldn't do that for their own backgrounds. Juror 10 for example seemed to believe that these types of defendants were trash so they had to be guilty, which isn't true. Other jurors weren't the sort who would try to debate the case. Some of the jurors who voted guilty at the beginning I think didn't raise their hands right away because they wanted to see where the majority was. When that happened, others joined in, rather than want to talk about the case. 8 was the only one who wanted to talk at first. He didn't care if he was alone-he wanted to talk about this case and make sure of the evidence.

[–] KingCobra686 8 years ago

The jurors that were the most prejudiced or irresponsible had the most disagreeable personalities.

I liked the juror with the glasses who was sitting by the window in the middle. He was kind of stiff, but very calm and collected and rational. He didnt vote Not Guilty until the last part about the glasses.

[–] Martoto (5036) 8 years ago

In my experience, bigoted and ignorant people do tend to have disagreeable personalities.

And once a person appears to be bigoted and ignorant to you, it's hard not to be also displeased with their personality too.