STORIES don’t come more American- specific than Reginald Rose’s jury- room drama “12 Angry Men,” a TV play that became a classic 1957 movie from debuting director Sidney Lumet and, decades later, a Broadway play.
Veteran director Nikita Mikhalkov (“Dark Eyes”) and his collaborators have more than risen to the challenge with “12,” a loose remake that’s not only as Russian as vodka but also a grippingly entertaining actors’ showcase.
In this ingenious adaptation, the defendant is not an underprivileged teenager but a young Chechen (Apti Magnamaev) who’s on trial for murdering his adopted father, a Russian officer.
Where Lumet’s movie was set inside a claustrophobic room in which emotions exploded, Mikhalkov has the jury deliberate in a huge high-school gymnasium filled with well-deployed props like a piano and basketballs – and enough space to stage mock crimes.
Sergei Makovetsky has Henry Fonda’s old role of the soft-spoken lone holdout who doubts the defendant is guilty and tries to convince the other 11, who are impatient to go about their business, of his innocence.
At the other end of the spectrum is a racist cabdriver (Sergei Garmash). Other notable performances include Sergei Gazarov as a surgeon from the Caucasus who gives a vivid demonstration with a knife on the cabby, and Yuri Stoyanov, brilliant as a TV producer who keeps changing his mind.
The director himself plays the level-headed jury foreman, who provides the plot’s devastating final twist.
“12” runs roughly a hour longer than the original, including flashbacks to the Chechen war, a subplot about political corruption and more time devoted to the jurors’ back stories.
The time passes quickly. This is the rare remake that does honor to the spirit of the original.
12
Directorial tour de force.
In Russian and Chechen with English subtitles. Running time: 159 minutes. Rated PG-13 (profanity, violence). At Film Forum, Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue.