12 (tbc)
- Run time: 2 hours 33 mins
- Language: Russian
- Genre: Drama
- Release date: 1st January 2007
- Starring: Sergei Makovetskii, Sergei Garmash, Aleksei Petrenko
- Directed by: Nikita Mikhalkov
- Distributor: Tri Te
Plot Synopsis
A dozen men are sequestered in a jury room to decide the fate of a teenage boy on trial for murder. The informal conversation as the men prepare to deliberate indicates that they expect to be on their way home within minutes, since the prosecution's case is so compelling. Sure enough, the first vote is 11:1 in favor of conviction.
Two-plus hours (and more than a dozen monologues) later, the 1 has persuaded the 11 to join him on the other side of the colon, so to speak, and vote for acquittal. This is the familiar plot of Sidney Lumet's 1957 film ‘Twelve Angry Men', based on Reginald Rose's 1954 teleplay (Rose also wrote the screenplay for Lumet's film). Fifty years later, Nikita Mikhalkov has adapted the story for a 21st century Russian audience, and the resulting film, despite its small cast, narrow narrative focus, and unitary setting, is ultimately concerned with the same ambitious question Mikhalkov poses in his other, more epic productions: What Is Russia?