12 - Movie Review and Synopsis

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Category: Movies. Tags: Apti Magamaev, Crime, Drama, Nikita Mikhalkov, Sergei Makovetsky, Sergey Garmash, Sony Pictures Classics, Thriller, War.

A loose remake of 12 Angry Men (1957), set in a Russian school. 12 jurors are struggling to decide the fate of a Chechen teenager who allegedly killed his Russian stepfather. Stepfather took teenager to live with him to Moscow, during Chechnya war, in which teenager lost his parents. The jurors: a racist taxi-driver, a suspicious doctor, a vacillating TV producer, a Holocaust survivor, a flamboyant musician, a cemetery manager, and others represent the fragmented society of modern day Russia.A stray bird (a touch of New Age cinema) is flying above the jurors’ heads, alluding to tolerance.

Remember last year’s Oscars, when writer-director Nikita Mikhalkov’s thriller vied for the Foreign Language trophy against the unbeatable Counterfeiters? Hopefully word-of-mouth will keep 12 in theaters for a while, because neither the press nor the studio is paying the film much attention during the busy awards season. However! Russian film is still in the spotlight thanks to Admiral, and Mikhalkov’s developing a sequel to his Oscar-winning Burnt by the Sun. See you next year, Nikita?

Rated PG-13 for violent images, disturbing content, thematic material, brief sexual and drug references, and smoking.

Director: Nikita Mikhalkov
Stars: Sergei Makovetsky, Sergey Garmash, Apti Magamaev
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Release Date: 4 March 2009 (USA)
Genre: Crime | Drama | Thriller | War