Sidney Lumet’s classic 12 Angry Men is one of those films one doesn’t really expect to see remade. The original still holds up beautifully and the fact that it is considered a classic puts it even further off the remake train but what happens when another culture takes the familiar story and puts their own twist on it?
Last year’s Foreign Language Oscar race was an odd one in that I had only heard of one of the films, never mind seen any of them. Out of the five, Beaufort, The Counterfeiters (our review) and Mongol (our review) have all been released in North America but no sign of either Katyn or 12 – until now.
Oscar winning director Nikita Mikhalkov’s film still doesn’t have an official release date but the folks at Sony Pictures Classics have released an English subtitled trailer for the film and it looks fantastic. Gorgeously shot and just enough of a twist on the original story to make it fresh, this is certainly one to keep your eyes peeled for later this year.
I’ll be sure to pass along the release date as soon as it’s available but for the time being, take a look at the gorgeous trailer below.
Trailer is tucked under the seat!
12 Angry Men has been remade a couple times, it is flexible enough (and broad enough) to be culturally-permeable and survive the various spins of different times and places.
I’ve been waiting for “12″ for what seems like forever now. This can’t come soon enough. The stills for the film looked stylishly great, but that trailer simply pops in QT, leading me to wonder if this was shot in HD…
It’s funny; if I hadn’t heard so many great things about this, I’d be very against it. The trailer looks pretty, but still seems unnecessary. I only saw 12 Angry Men the one time for the review we did on the Cinecast and I can’t wait to revisit it. I look forward to it more than I look forward to the remake. Though I still want to see this new one for sure.
One of the things I really like about 12AM is that’s shot all in one room and that’s it and the psychological effect that implies (for the viewer and juror). I’m not sure all this “Children of Men” looking footage is necessary.
But again, I’m optimistic and am sure it’s good.
I’m typically not a foreign movie buff but ’12′ got my attention. ’12′ is a Russian version of the American movie classic ‘Twelve Angry Men’ of 1957. I watched it about 15 minutes then switched channels.
Too its credit this Russian version had an intellectual approach that made it very compelling. Again, in this remake, 1 juror out of the 12 chooses not guilty. And like his peers, the lone juror has heard three days of evidence but doesn’t feel 100% convinced to vote ‘guilty’. He tells the other jurors that they are dealing with a human being’s life and he’s not ready to make a final verdict. He wants his peers to engage in further discussion. And by voting ‘not guilty’ he has caused his peers to further discuss rather then ending too quickly. An interesting ploy on his part.
Unlike the original classic, there is no yelling or use of expletives in this version. This Russian version Although, in fairness, the original and remake of ’97 was a lot of yelling and little expetives. What you had were men expressing their concerns and/or disbeliefs that a ‘not guilty’ was being considered.
And though I watched this movie a short time I recommend it for those who enjoy compelling foreign movies. I may check it out again for the entire time.