I noticed that trailers for both Just Mercy and Dark Waters came out around the same time. That makes sense since both are obviously aimed for awards season as prestige releases. Both are also legal dramas based on true stories of crusading lawyers working to right wrongs through legal actions in and out of court. The big difference between the two is the target. Dark Waters looked at corporate malfeasance and how a greedy company appears to have possibly poisoned the entire planet. Just Mercy indicts the legal system itself that would put an innocent black man on death row.
Both of these are worthy topics for a movie, with high caliber actors in lead roles as we see the attorneys work their way to justice against seemingly impossible odds. But I’ve already reviewed Dark Waters, so let’s look at Just Mercy, now in wide release.
The movie opens in 1987 with the arrest of Walter “Johnnie D” McMillian (Jamie Foxx) for murder. A white girl was killed, the police haven’t found a culprit yet, so they arrest Johnnie D for the crime. He’s going to die for this, but then hope moves to Alabama in the form of recent Harvard Law grad Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan). Bryan is setting up a legal service, funded by a federal grant, to provide free legal services to poor folks, and he opted to go to Alabama and see if he could help the men on Death Row. Though Johnnie D isn’t inclined to feel much hope at first, Bryan opts to look into the case anyway and see what he can do. His biggest obstacle is the county DA and the police, all of whom believe they got the right guy and don’t want to overturn anything. And they aren’t afraid to bend the law to keep things the way they are.
Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s movie is, in many ways, a standard legal drama based on a true story. We know Bryan will face some obstacles, overcome them, and most likely prevail. And the movie does a good job of following that basic formula. As such, the thing to really set a movie like Just Mercy apart from other similar dramas would be the cast’s performances. To that end, Just Mercy succeeds rather well.
True, Jordan’s Stevenson is the standard crusading attorney with a strong amount of empathy for his many clients, but the real treat is Foxx. His Johnnie D is perhaps the most three dimensional character in the movie. We see him in despair, hopeful, and supportive. Perhaps the best scenes in the movie are short scenes on Death Row as Johnnie chats with the other inmates he befriended during his time there.
But then there’s Brie Larson. Larson is a talented actress, but here, as Bryan’s local contact and the number two person at his agency Eva Ansley, she doesn’t really get much to work with. Her role seems to be, quite literally, standing in the background for numerous shots. She’s supportive, and that’s about it. For an actress of her strengths, that seems like a waste. Even Anne Hathaway got some nice speeches in the aforementioned Dark Waters! Meanwhile, Tim Blake Nelson seems to be almost a cartoon character at times, though I get the impression the man he is portraying really is a lot like that.
All things being equal, Just Mercy is a good movie covering an important issue. Now, if some older couple didn’t come ask me what seat number I had with only a few minutes left in the movie. Nothing kills an experience like someone asking you questions while standing right in front of you just as a movie is ending.
Grade: B
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