Eleven men want the afternoon back. The twelfth wants the testimony walked through, because a life is not a schedule. The film is a whole civics lesson in one sweatbox: prejudice with a smile, prejudice with a shout, and the slow work of looking at a knife and a train schedule until the story the state told no longer holds. Nobody is romanticized for being angry. The quiet man is not a saint. He is simply unwilling to be rushed into a killing.

A teenager should see this before they see another thriller about a genius detective. Justice here looks like staying in the chair. That is a picture this house can use.