12
Short description
Twelve men are gathered in a makeshift jury room in a Moscow school gymnasium to decide the fate of an eighteen-year-old Chechen boy accused of killing his stepfather, a Russian army officer. The evidence appears to point to his guilt, and eleven of the jurors are ready to convict. One of them refuses to accept that the case is straightforward and asks the others to weigh it more carefully, prompting each man in turn to confront the facts, his own past, and the assumptions he brought into the room while the defendant waits for the verdict.
Nikita Mikhalkov directed and co-wrote the film, which followed The Barber of Siberia in his filmography. The screenplay is credited to Mikhalkov, Aleksandr Novototskiy-Vlasov and Vladimir Moiseenko, and Mikhalkov appears among the jurors alongside Sergey Makovetskiy, Sergey Garmash, Valentin Gaft, Aleksey Petrenko and Yuriy Stoyanov. The production involved Mosfilm, Studio Trite and the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematograph, with a budget of about 4 million USD and a worldwide gross of roughly 8 million USD.
The film runs 159 minutes. On IMDb it holds a 7.5 rating from 16,000 votes, while on TMDB it has a 6.6 from 430 votes. A critics' rating of 6.7 from 59 reviews places professional assessments close to the audience score on TMDB and somewhat below the larger IMDb sample.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film features a uniquely striking moment – a 10-minute monologue by Sergey Makovetsky, filmed in a single take with a wide shot.
- The role of the first juror (Sergey Makovetsky) was originally intended for Oleg Menshikov, but after reading the script, he realized it wasn’t right for him and declined.
- The film was shot in five weeks.
- The photograph of the mother shown by Yuri Stoyanov’s character is actually himself, only heavily made up.
- Since all 12 actors had to be constantly on set, Nikita Mikhalkov signed a strict contract with each of them. The main condition was that the actors could not participate in other projects during filming. Valentin Gaft was the exception. Nikita Sergeyevich allowed him to attend performances – while he conducted rehearsals with other actors.
- How Sergei Makovetsky was cast in the role. Late autumn 2006, Mikhalkov called Makovetsky and, without any pleasantries, said into the phone: “Makovetsky, do you believe in God?” - “Who is this?” - “It doesn’t matter who. Do you believe or not?” - “Well, I do…” - “And do you go to church?” - “I do” - “Your prayers have been answered.”
- The reason for filming '12' was a forced break in work on 'Burnt by the Sun 2: Citadel'. Mikhalkov’s idea was that a remake of Lumet’s film would prevent the film crew from stagnating. It should be recalled that in 1978 he did exactly the same thing, between the two parts of 'A Few Days in the Life of I.I. Oblomov', he filmed the brilliant film 'Five Evenings' based on the play by Alexander Volodin.
- The names of the jurors are unknown, with the exception of Nikita Mikhalkov's character. At the end of the film, in a conversation with a Chechen boy, it is revealed that his name is Nikolai. In the television version, in the episode on the street where the jurors are going home, in a dialogue between the "taxi driver" (Sergei Garmash) and the "Jew" (Valentin Gaft), they tell each other their names are Arkady (the taxi driver) and Pavel (the Jew).
- The film contains a borrowing from an earlier film by Nikita Mikhalkov ("Relatives", 1981) – a suddenly ringing alarm clock in a briefcase, which the character turns off by hitting the briefcase.
- The episode with the dog carrying a severed human hand is borrowed from Akira Kurosawa's famous film "Yojimbo" (also known as "Bodyguard").
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