Politics ahead of plot

Sad to hear of the death of Sidney Lumet, whose films, for the most part, I enjoyed. His most famous – 12 Angry Men – was certainly compelling, claustrophobic and actorly; a little like a very early version of the wonderful Glengarry Glen Ross, in its reliance upon dialogue and nuance. Hardly a surprise that Lumet later worked with the writer and director of Glengarry Glen Ross on his best – rather than most famous – film, The Verdict, a courtroom drama with a who bunch of performances to cherish – Newman, Mason, Milo O Shea..

But the plot of 12 Angry Men was a nonsense, wasn’t it? Quite clearly the defendant did it and should have been fried, no matter how noble Henry Fonda looked and how nasty Lee J Cobb appeared to be. Like so many liberal Hollywood films it allowed its political conviction to swamp the narrative and the plot. The reasons raised for doubting a conviction were speculative and ludicrous. I assume many of our judges saw and adored it.

It was not alone in that, of course. In The Heat of the Night, directed by Norman Jewison, is a wonderful film on many counts, not least for Steiger and Poitier’s performances and the superb score by Quincy Jones. But, again, it’s desperation to make a perfectly reasonable liberal political point seems to have convinced the director that it’s therefore ok to make the later plot development incoherent and absurd. I must have watched it 30 times and still do not understand how or why the killer was eventually identified. In the end, on both counts, the viewer is left feeling a little shortchanged, no matter how wonderful the performances, nor how noble the sentiments.