Just Mercy (2019)

By: Mike Ward on Friday, January 10

PG-13 Running Time: 136 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

With a stellar cast, Just Mercy has an impressive pedigree in a high-profile, prestige release from writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton.
Jamie Foxx offers a heartbreaking, rich, and moving portrayal which provides much of the heart of the film, but there’s also a performance by Rob Morgan that should be getting more attention than it has received.
The movie’s restraint is seen by some as a strength - holding back raw emotion and allowing the story to work through its paces to its necessary conclusion.

NO

The film’s restraint seems to settle in almost too long, giving the film a surprising lack of urgency almost counter-intuitive to the subject matter.
While an argument could, and probably should be made, that stories like Walter MacMillian’s need to be heard, seen, and learned about - Just Mercy, cinematically speaking, feels like a movie mining tropes and scene structure we have largely seen numerous times before.
Cretton’s film has plenty of talented people doing lots of talented things, but feels just as comfortable on the small screen, as it does on a big one.

OUR REVIEW

Disgraceful and despicable, stories like those of Walter MacMillian are all too common in the history of the American Justice system. In 1986, Monroeville, Alabama, an 18-year-old white girl has been found murdered - a victim of multiple gunshot wounds to the back. Based on one witness’s questionable testimony, the local authorities arrest Walter, a local African-American man, nicknamed Johnny D, who works as a local logger and woodworker.

Walter’s story, and an attorney’s accelerated coming-of-age on-the-job comprises Just Mercy, the third film from writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton.

During a hasty arrest and rush through the courts, Walter’s history of having interracial relationships comes into play. An unproven set of facts, ignoring nearly two dozen witnesses who could place him at a fish fry during the time of the murder: None of this matters. Prior to the time that upstart defense attorney Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) descends upon the small, southern Alabama town, Walter (Jamie Foxx) has been convicted and sentenced to Death Row for a crime he never committed.

Co-written and directed by Cretton (Short Term 12, The Glass Castle), the film is adapted from Stevenson’s novel about the eventual formation of the Equal Justice Initiative and his work defending wrongfully convicted prisoners on Death Row.

In Just Mercy, Stevenson’s arrival, fresh out of Harvard Law School, nattily dressed and ready to change the world, finds sobering realities awaiting him. Walter is not alone, and others would like their cases re-tried or heard.

Settling into the community, he finds help in Eva (Brie Larson), who quickly becomes his paralegal. And as soon as he gets to know Walter, he finds a kind, but hardened soul. Walter is resistant, indifferent, and has accepted his fate. To him, Stevenson represents a fresh-faced newbie, full of good intentions, who will unfortunately learn the realities that so many previous high-promise/low-result attorneys could never overcome when it comes to Walter’s fate.

At its core, Just Mercy is a powerful story told in a measured and composed manner. On the one hand, the restraint offers a unique spin on the film. The urgency is tempered, almost matching Walter’s hesitancy to get his hopes up. Cretton believes in letting his scenes breathe, and his actors explore the space they are given. Jordan’s performance is strong and steady as a result, seldom robust.

What works for character however, seems to slow down the emotional beats of the film, with Jordan seemingly taking a back seat to a powerful Foxx and a memorable Rob Morgan, who represents the realities that await Walter, if Stevenson cannot fulfill the ambition driving his actions.

It would be harsh to say that Just Mercy is nothing special, because, in Cretton’s heart-of-hearts, he is tackling some weighty, important subject matter. Cretton, along with co-writer Andrew Lanham, may over-emote in their courtroom scenes, but you get the sense that they have labored and strained over their words so much, fearful of not making any mistakes. As a result, Just Mercy feels too controlled, almost too meticulous, and seems to miss a rhythm and flow that makes Walter’s story the impactful and emotional story it needs to be.

Though a better film than this statement indicates: Just Mercy moves from a personal story of judicial activism and morphs into a courtroom procedural that will play well on cable television for years to come.

If that sounds reductive, that is not the intention. Simply, Cretton’s approach to the material often begs for something more. More anger. More fire. More heft.

Just Mercy is a good movie I hope finds a robust audience when it opens wide in January 2020. The performances are all strong and we need to hear Walter’s story, and those like them now as much as ever. However, while the film is not an underwhelming experience, much of it looks and feels like so many other, similar movies which have come before it.

And perhaps Cretton’s care and concern in seemingly trying to get everything just right, left some of the risk and fearlessness the movie could benefit from absent and muted.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Rafe Spall, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Lindsey Ayliffe, Karan Kendrick, C.J. LeBlanc, Ron Clinton Smith.

Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
Written by: Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham
Based on the book “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson
Release Date: December 25, 2019
Warner Bros.

With a stellar cast, Just Mercy has an impressive pedigree in a high-profile, prestige release from writer/director Destin Daniel Cretton.

Jamie Foxx offers a heartbreaking, rich, and moving portrayal which provides much of the heart of the film, but there’s also a performance by Rob Morgan that should be getting more attention than it has received.

The movie’s restraint is seen by some as a strength - holding back raw emotion and allowing the story to work through its paces to its necessary conclusion.

The film’s restraint seems to settle in almost too long, giving the film a surprising lack of urgency almost counter-intuitive to the subject matter.

While an argument could, and probably should be made, that stories like Walter MacMillian’s need to be heard, seen, and learned about - Just Mercy, cinematically speaking, feels like a movie mining tropes and scene structure we have largely seen numerous times before.

Cretton’s film has plenty of talented people doing lots of talented things, but feels just as comfortable on the small screen, as it does on a big one.