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A review by sassmistress
Twelve Angry Men (Kindle edition) by David Mamet, Reginald Rose
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
5.0
Really enjoyed this gripping courthouse drama! There weren't very many dated references, despite being written in 1954, and it's an exciting story. I see why this is a classic. To read the play, you do have to be able to keep track of characters by number instead of name, but it was pretty easy to follow as long as I kept 4 of those numbers straight. Definitely want to go see a production version at some point!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism
Minor: Domestic abuse and Physical abuse
- Being centered on the jury for a murder trial demanding the death penalty, death is discussed frequently, but not in a detailed way beyond the angle of the stabbing and the neighbor hearing the body hit the floor. The defendant is underage and facing the death penalty (electric chair is mentioned callously a few times).
- I counted 1 "a**", 2 "ba***rds" and quite a few occurrences of "he**" and "g**d***". Also, "Chr**sakes", "son of a b****", "load of cr**". There may be more that I missed. It picks up pace during the climax, when you're already invested.
- Very aggressive racism is closely depicted.One juror votes guilty (for the death penalty) not because of the evidence, but because "These people are... gonna breed us out of existence." "They are--wild animals." "This boy, this boy on trial here. We've got him. That's one at least. I say get him before his kind gets us." The race/ethnicity of the boy is never specified, but one of the jurors, an immigrant of unspecified origin, is subjected to the same vitriol. This is all confronted by other members of the jury.
- The boy was subject to physical abuse by his father, the victim. It's repeated that he hit his son multiple times and the boy was used to it.
- "The father wasn't exactly a model citizen... He was in prison once. He was a compulsive gambler and a pretty consistent loser. He spent a lot of time in neighborhood bars and he'd get into fistfights sometimes after a couple of drinks. Usually over a woman. He was a tough, cruel, primitive kind of man who never held a job for more than six months in his life." Someone suggests he could have instead have been murdered by "a man he'd beaten up" or "a woman he picked up".
- Y'know, "Angry Men." The conversation gets heated, there are a few creative insults, near-fights that get broken up, and one man makes as if to stab another to get him to flinch
- I counted 1 "a**", 2 "ba***rds" and quite a few occurrences of "he**" and "g**d***". Also, "Chr**sakes", "son of a b****", "load of cr**". There may be more that I missed. It picks up pace during the climax, when you're already invested.
- Very aggressive racism is closely depicted.
- "The father wasn't exactly a model citizen... He was in prison once. He was a compulsive gambler and a pretty consistent loser. He spent a lot of time in neighborhood bars and he'd get into fistfights sometimes after a couple of drinks. Usually over a woman. He was a tough, cruel, primitive kind of man who never held a job for more than six months in his life." Someone suggests he could have instead have been murdered by "a man he'd beaten up" or "a woman he picked up".
- Y'know, "Angry Men." The conversation gets heated, there are a few creative insults, near-fights that get broken up, and one man makes as if to stab another to get him to flinch