‘There’s always something we can do. Whatever you did, your life is still meaningful...’
I recently watched and reviewed the excellent biopic of crusading civil rights lawyer Thurgood Marshall – a film that has become even more prescient following the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Just Mercy shares a lot of points of comparison. We have a talented auteur behind the camera in Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12), an exciting black actor at the heart of the story in Michael B. Jordan and a story of civil rights struggle within the American justice system. It is a testament to both films that despite sharing all of these similar elements, they are still very much their own thing…
When Walter McWillian (Jamie Foxx) is wrongly accused of murdering a young woman in a sleepy Alabama town, world-renowned civil rights defence attorney Brian Stevenson (Jordan) picks up his case (with support from local advocate Eva Ansley (Brie Larson).
So again, as with Marshall, we have a simple story told effectively. Jordan is perhaps not quite as electrifying as Chadwick Boseman was as Thurgood Marshall, but he does bring the kind of quiet authority that has become his trademark. Elsewhere, Foxx puts in an understated performance rich in emotional depth as the man rotting away on death row, and Larson (a regular Daniel Cretton collaborator) is as competent as ever.
Despite an all-star cast, Cretton allows the plot to take centre stage, a wise move considering the power of Stevenson’s story and the subject matter involved. Just Mercy is yet another film that tackles the murky subject of the American justice system, and the heart-breaking coda confirms there is still plenty of work to be done in that area.
Just Mercy isn’t ground-breaking or ostentatious, but it is a powerful story told in a way that is both respectful of its subject matter and compelling in terms of entertainment. A success!