The 12 Angry Men remake isn’t a bad picture. It’s just that as a film, it’s nothing special, and as a remake, it adds very little of value to the original.

The film was shown over network television in 1997 and was directed by William Friedkin. The film replaces Henry Fonda with Jack Lemmon as Juror 8, the only person in a 12-man jury who believes that an 18-year-old boy didn’t murder his father in cold blood.

The film, aside from small changes to the characters, is very loyal to the original, with whole lines copied and pasted.

Juror No. 1 (this time being played by Courtney B. Vance) still tries to keep everyone in the jury room. Although this time instead of being a high school coach, he coaches impoverished kids of color at a youth center.

Juror No. 2 (Ossie Davis) has been changed physically from the youngest of all the jurors to an older Black man. But the remake keeps scenes where Juror 3 (George C. Scott) talks down to him; in the original it was Juror 3 simply taking down to him due to his age. Here, when Juror 3 talks down to Juror 2 it feels like he’s treating him like an idiot.

Juror No. 3 (Scott) is still the most adamant out of all of them that the boy is guilty and still has issues with his son.

Juror No. 4 (Armin Mueller-Stahl,) like the original, is a banker and the most logical out of all of them.

Juror No. 5 (Dorian Harewood) still lived in a slum most of his life and butts heads with Juror 10 (Mykelti Williamson).

Juror No. 6 (James Gandolfini) is a salt-of-the-earth working man and is very respectful toward his elders.

Juror No. 7 (Tony Danza) continues to simply want to get it over with and has tickets to the ball game.

Juror No. 8 (Lemmon) also (like the original) isn’t sure if the boy is innocent but believes that they should still discuss the case instead of just condemning the boy to death in an instant.

Juror No. 9 (Hume Cronyn) is the oldest out of all them and respects bravery. His age isn’t as pronounced in this film as most of the actors are quite a bit older than their original counterparts.

Juror No. 10 (Williamson) has changed the most character wise. He doesn’t just hate the defendant because he’s from a slum, but also because he’s Hispanic. Changing the prejudices from economic to racial would have been a clever update. But they kept original reasoning as well, making it confusing what problem he really has with the defendant.

Juror No. 11 (Edward James Olmos) is a European watchmaker who moved to the U.S. 

Juror No. 12 (William Peterson) is an ad executive who’s still a little dimwitted. 

The film has the problem of doing the same things as the original version but not as well.

A great example in the original is when Juror 10 explodes in hateful rhetoric about people in the slums, until almost everyone, whether they’re on his side or not, gets up and refuses to even look at him. He realizes that everyone is sick of his rhetoric and stops speaking. He starts begging for someone to listen to him, with Juror 4 simply responding, “We have, now sit down and never open your mouth again.” Juror 10 complies and sits in the corner of the room in shame for the rest of the film.

They start to do something similar in the remake, but then the scene promptly loses impact when Juror 1 and 2 start yelling at him to be quiet and to not rope them into this. And when he sits down in the corner it’s less out of shame and more like he’s throwing a temper tantrum and he’s not to join the rest of the class until he’s had a “time out.” 

Another thing the original did better than this remake was showing, not telling, character quirks.  For example, in the original it’s shown in a scene that Juror 6 is very respectful toward his elders when he threatens to lay out Juror 3 if he ever talks rudely to Juror 9 again.

In the remake, he simply says that he’s very respectful toward his elders. After showing his respect for his elders.

These examples are both surprising and yet not surprising because both the original film and this film were written by the same person, Reginald Rose. Not surprising, as there are whole scenes simply copied and pasted from the original and he might not have seen a reason to change the original script too much.

Yet surprisingly because he still made a fair share of changes from the original and when he did it sticks out like a sore thumb. And worse, most times, the changes weren’t warranted.

The cinematography done by Boris Kaufman in the original was also better compared to the work of the cinematographer for the remake, Fred Schler.

In the original, when Juror 9 talks about the old man who supposedly heard the crime, the camera focuses on him, letting the audience realize through the dialogue, the acting, and the cinematography that Juror 9 isn’t just talking about the old man who testified, but himself.

In the remake, the camera switches locations, and Juror 9 keeps getting interrupted by others, making it more difficult for the audience to get sucked into the scene. 

That’s not to say that the remake is all bad. The acting is still great and Juror 3 remains the highlight of this film, though this time it’s George C. Scott.

In music, when one covers a song, it should be like adding a wine to a five-star meal. It adds to the meal. This also works for when remaking a film. It should bring something new and different to differentiate itself from the original.

The 12 Angry Men remake, unfortunately, doesn’t do that, instead going for a line-for-line remake.

Because of this, there’s virtually no point to watching the remake when the original still exists, and is incredibly better.