It's obviously an infodump. Actually two infodumps back to back. Not even the author would argue with you on the nature of these monologues. But they kill two birds with one stone.

Since we didn't see the trial, they give us a rundown of the prosecution's case early in the story. They also introduce and reinforce two of the main characters, again, early in the story.

Another infodump spoken by a different character in the same story, or by the same character in a different place in the same story, might not be effective and therefore might not be justifiable. A similar infodump in a different story, no matter where in the story, no matter which character, might not be appropriate at all.

Infodumps are not INHERENTLY good or bad. Whether they are good or bad, and how effective they are if they are good, depends on the context. All this infodump means is that it works well in this particular place in this particular story for these particular characters.

Granted, these infodumps are from a movie, but movies are criticized for infodumps as well. And this particular infodump happened to be available to this particular poster at this particular time.

The old man lived downstairs under the room where the killing took place. At 10 minutes after 12 on the night of the killing, he heard loud noises. Said it sounded like a fight. And he heard the kid yell out, "I'm gonna kill ya." A second later, he heard a body hit the floor. Ran to the door, opened it up, saw the kid run down the stairs and out of the house. Called the police. They found the old man with the knife in his chest. The coroner fixed the time of death around midnight.

It is obvious to me that the boy's entire story was flimsy. He claimed he was at the movies, yet he couldn't remember the names of the films he saw or who played in them. And no one saw him at the theatre. And the woman across the street-if her testimony don't prove it, nothing does. Here's a woman who's

[This message has been edited by adamatom (edited November 24, 2009).]

As you said, we never see the trial. The whole movie, except an opening snippet, takes place in the jury room. So the audience has to be told what is going on. And it had to happen quickly enough to grab and hold the viewer's attention.

But even within the story it is justified. They are in that room for the sole purpose of reviewing the case and coming to a decision. It makes sense for someone to lay out the facts like that. If you're with a group of people trying to solve a problem it often starts out with, "well what do we know?"

And while we the audience know that we are being given the story, we are still not being given all of the story. They spend the rest of the movie drawing more details and facts out of that opening bit of information. So I don't know if I would truly call this an info 'dump'. We are not being told anything but the bare essentials needed for us to understand what's going on. If that information were doled out more slowly the story would have been frustrating. And while the story is about the unraveling of the case, it is even more about the men in the jury room. No time was wasted on things that weren't necessary to the story.

It also reminds me of a journalistic approach, if I remember my high school class well enough. You start out by giving the essential information that backs up the headline. That is then followed by smaller details as the news story goes on. If the reader only reads the first paragraph they at least know what happened. But they have to continue reading for depth and to get all of the facts.