Reworking of '12 Angry Men' set in contemporary Moscow

A loose and loquacious reworking of Reginald Rose's '50s jury-room drama

12 Angry Men

, Nikita Mikhalkov's

12

is set in contemporary Moscow - in a dilapidated school gym. Here, a dozen jurors have been sent to deliberate while the nearby courthouse is under renovation. The men find themselves locked in a space with leaky pipes, a basketball hoop, and a piano - a piano caged behind protective bars. (There's some symbolism for you.)

A Chechen youth is on trial for the murder of his stepfather, a Russian army officer. As the deliberations begin, all but one of the jurors are ready to find him guilty.

Mikhalkov's 12 - a 2009 foreign-language Oscar nominee - takes playwright Rose's template, and 12 Angry Men's exploration of racism and prejudice, and transplants it to post-Communist Russia, where ethnic bias, class conflict, and a social and political malaise work like a fog machine, clouding up the room.

Writer/director Mikhalkov mixes in flashbacks of the Chechen conflict, and the carnage the accused grew up in. Mikhalkov also gives himself the key role as foreman, and gives each of his co-stars personal issues to grapple with: There's a Jewish intellectual, a bigoted Moscow cabbie, a television producer, a doctor from the Caucasus. And Sergey Makovetsky is there in the Henry Fonda role as the soft-spoken contrarian who slowly, steadfastly, turns his fellow jurors around.

Full of passion and speechifying, 12 is unmistakably Russian in spirit and sensibility, but its themes are universal at their core: Human beings are filled with bigotry and hate, but also with an ability to reason and, on our better days, to seek out the truth.

Directed by Nikita Mikhalkov. With Mikhalkov, Sergey Makovetsky, Sergey Garmash, Alexei Petrenko and Yuri Stoyanov. Distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. In Russian with subtitles.

Running time: 2 hours, 39 mins.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (violence, profanity, adult themes).

Playing at: Ritz at the Bourse.EndText

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