
Images of a pair of feet hurrying down
building stairs are interrupted by a title card reading,
“Seek the truth not in the mundane details of daily life but
in the essence of life itself.” A dreamlike jumble of
bucolic and apocalyptic memories of rural life in war torn
Chechnya, and a chorus of disembodied speakers from past and
present coalesce into the single voice of a Russian judge
charging a jury.
The memories belong to an orphaned Chechen youth (Apti
Magamaev) momentarily nodding off while on trial in Moscow
for murdering his adopted father, a Russian military
officer. “The decision must be unanimous,” the judge
instructs the jury before the boy is led away to await their
verdict. A diminutive bailiff (Alexander Adashian) escorts
the 12 men controlling the boy’s future into a makeshift
jury room in a school gym next door to the courthouse. The
bailiff confiscates the juror’s cell phones but assures
them, “You’ll be done in twenty minutes.” As he locks the 12
into the gym, somewhere in the courthouse a guard turns a
key on the accused Chechen youth.
Relieved to be out of the courtroom, the jury members snack,
complain, and kid one another. A Harvard educated television
Producer (Yuri Stoyanov) has a business lunch that
afternoon. A touring comic Actor (Mikhail Efremov) has a
train to catch. A Surgeon (Sergey Gazarov) with a family
drug history is upset by the discovery of a syringe. The
case appears to be a simple one and at the behest of a
benignly authoritative jury member the group selects to be
Foreman (Mikhalkov), the group sits down at a long table in
the center of the gym and votes on whether or not to send
the Chechen youth to jail for life by show of hands. 11
choose to convict. To their shock, 1 votes to acquit. The
sole dissenter, a thoughtful Engineer (Sergey Makovetsky),
explains that he believes they acted too fast and without
the amount of discussion such a grave decision warrants.
A native Muscovite Cabbie (Sergey Garmash) faces off with
the Engineer, demanding to know why he should have pity on a
“stinking Chechen dog.” The Cabbie makes anti-Semitic
remarks to an older Jewish man (Valentin Gaft) who votes to
acquit in a second ballot done on paper. The Jewish man
observes that the accused man ’s lawyer appeared
disinterested in his own defense. Alone in his cell the
Chechen youth flashes back to his childhood in the Caucasus.
In an effort to sway the remaining ten men, the Engineer
takes the floor to tell a personal story of alcoholism and
redemption. The Cabbie and an addled Transit Worker (Alexey
Petrenko) counter with declarations of hatred and distrust
for non-Russians that the Cabbie says make him “feel like an
alien in my own city.” In childhood flashback, the accused
meets a group of Chechen partisans before being angrily
escorted away by his biological father.
The Engineer asks to examine the murder weapon – a military
issue knife belonging to a partisan seen in the prior
flashback. The Jewish man tells a strange but true story of
his father successfully wooing a Nazi SS officer’s wife, and
the Transit Worker presents a bizarre saga about his uncle
improvising a hostage crisis. The Surgeon, who is from the
Caucasus, faces off with the Cabbie and the Actor now votes
to acquit, leaving 7 men still upholding a guilty verdict.
After a sparrow flies into the cavernous room seeking
shelter from the harsh Moscow winter and a flashback to a
grisly Chechen firefight reveals the accused man’s own
personal loss, the jurors improvise a recreation of the
crime using the space and athletic equipment at hand. The
experiment leaves the Surgeon and the Producer convinced of
the boy’s innocence. Enraged by the new majority, the Cabbie
acts-out a grisly paranoid rape and murder scenario with the
neurotic Producer, who breaks down and impulsively changes
his vote back to guilty. In his cell the Chechen youth
silently recalls his rescue by the Russian officer he’s
accused of murdering while in the gymnasium, where it’s now
night, the lights fail. The Surgeon and the Cabbie spar over
the death blow itself and the tide shifts further in favor
of exoneration. The Engineer’s doubts about the credibility
of a star witness and submitted photo evidence provide more
mitigation.
The Cabbie takes center stage for a raw confession of abuse
and guilt of his own, and a member of the group with a
unique connection to the issues at hand and the lives at
stake is unmasked. Deciding the fate of one propels each of
the 12 beyond the known definitions of citizenship, empathy,
freedom, and justice. In the end “The law is all powerful
and constant” says a closing quote, “but what can be done
when mercy has greater force than the law.”
© Sony Pictures Classics. All
rights reserved
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