'Just Mercy' is a powerful legal drama — movie review

Just Mercy follows the true story of a civil rights attorney as he tries to prove the innocence of a man on death row

One-sentence review: Just Mercy may hit a lot of the familiar beats of a based on a true story legal drama, but the performances by Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, and Rob Morgan more than make up for its flaws.

As far as based on a true story legal dramas go, Just Mercy is on the better side. To be frank, there’s often a limitation to the quality of these kinds of movies because they’re made to be accessible by a wide audience — usually by credence from the studio. And while it doesn’t really break out of the mold, the two performances at the center of the film, by Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx, are enough to power through any of the typical moments.

Adapted from his autobiography, Just Mercy follows attorney Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) who, fresh out of Havard Law School, chooses to go to rural Alabama to set up a non-profit focused on freeing wrongly convicted death row inmates. There, he’s joined by Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), a local advocate who helps him set up his operation that is of course met by local resistance.

He takes up the cases of several inmates including Herbert Richardson (Rob Morgan) and, in particular, Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx).

McMillian was accused of murdering an 18-year-old local girl despite having a tight alibi and a case against him that was built on the flimsy testimony of a witness — of course, he was white. Like any movie telling this similar story, Stevenson suffers many setbacks — and a few wins — along the way that director Destin Daniel Cretton portrays without patina. His main struggle is to have the court even rehear the case, a process that’s blocked more than once by our bigotted villains — the town’s district attorney (Rafe Spall) and sheriff. Their moments are maybe too on the nose — as is a scene where Stevenson is extraneously pulled over in the middle of the night. That doesn’t make them any less effective. It works to communicate the story but is frustratingly by the numbers.

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However, there’s a moment midway through the movie where we focus in Herbert as his execution is brought forward. The movie slows its pace of hitting various plot points and spends time contemplating what it must be like to know you’re being put to death. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t tear up during the well-directed sequence that Rob Morgan gives a devastating performance in. I wish there were more moments like it.

Jordan’s performance as Stevenson and Foxx’s as McMillian are so human and empathetic of their characters that they just might be two of the best of the year. The screenplay, by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, gives them ample room to explore not only the personal journey but to talk about it in the context of our society and how the death penalty, but design, is flawed and rooted in racist institutions. It’s that exploration that elevates Just Mercy even slightly above its genre counterparts. 

I can’t underplay just how good the performances in the film are and how integral they are to its success. It’s a reminder that Foxx, who has down fewer dramas in recent years, is a terrific screen presence and Jordan, who was egregiously snubbed for Black Panther at the Oscars last year, is a bonafide Hollywood leading man who can easily hold the frame.

The movie, out of Christmas Day, is not an easy sit like other movies that sanitize stories about race. In particular, I’m thinking about Green Book. Just Mercy mercifully lacks a white savior narrative and also doesn’t deny that the issues still exist today and that Bryan Stevenson is still fighting for those on death row. Like Dark Waters, the quality of the film shouldn’t matter, even if it’s completely solid. This is a story well-told and a story worth hearing.