12 Angry Men
written by Reginald Rose
Juror #10: I don’t understand you people. I mean all these little picky points you bring up don’t mean nothing. They don't mean nothing. How can you believe his story? You're an intelligent man and you're not gonna tell me you’re not. You know the facts of life. Just look at what we're dealing with. Just look at what we're dealing with here. You know him. You know this kid. And this guy over here, I don’t know what the hell is going on with him, all this talk about psychiatrists. Maybe he ought to go to one. Now let’s look at the facts. These people are born to lie. Now that’s the way they are and no intelligent man is gonna tell me otherwise. They don’t know what the truth is. You take a look at them, they’re different. They think different, they act different and they don’t need some big excuse to kill somebody either. (Juror #5 leaves to go to the bathroom) Well it's true, Everyone knows it. Smoking that crack. Nothing but crack heads. (about the juror leaving) Look at him: Smart guy, Uncle Tom. What does that mean? Slamming the door. Anyway these people get drugged out and then BANG, all of a sudden somebody’s lying dead in the gutter. Okay look, nobody's blaming them for it. That’s just the way they are by nature. You know what I mean, they’re violent. And human life don’t mean as much to them as it does to us. (Juror #11 also leaves to go into the bathroom) Where you going? Where you going? Look while you’re in there maybe you ought to clean out your ears. Maybe you can hear something. Now look, listen to me now. These Spics they stay high on dope and they fight all the time. Look, if somebody gets killed, so somebody gets killed; they don’t care. And they breed like animals. Okay sure, there's some good things about them, I'm the first guy to tell you that. I've known some who are okay but that's the exception.
Juror #9 (Hume Cronyn): Do you know you're a sick man? Sit down.
Juror #10: You old son of a bitch, who are you? No, who the hell is he to tell me that… sit.. No, I’m speaking my piece here today and you're gonna listen. There's not one of them, not one that's any good. NOT ONE! You hear that? Sympathetic bastards And you at the window, you're so goddamn smart. We're facing a danger. Don't you know that? These wetbacks are multiplying like rabbits. They come over here illegally and they're multiplying five times faster than my people. That’s five times faster brothers. And they're wild animals. They're against us. They hate us. They want to destroy us. They come over here and they benefit from everything that we've built. That's right. Don't look at me like that. There's a danger. We are living in a dangerous time brother. If we don't smack them down. If we don't do something every chance we get then they're gonna own us. They're going to breed us out of existence.
Juror #6 (James Gandolfini): Shut up!
Juror #10: I'm warning you. You listen to me. I'm telling you, this boy. This boy on trial. We got him. We've got him. That's one at least. I say we get him before his kind gets us. I don’t give a damn about the law. Why should I? They don't. And I'm telling you--
Juror #2 (Ossie Davis): I’ve heard enough! Now you just stop this.
Juror #10: C'mon man, wake up. We can make a difference here.
Juror #4 (Armin Mueller-Stahl): Sit down! And don’t open your filthy mouth again.
Kudos and much thanks go to Stephen for this monologue, it is very much appreciated.