Just Mercy

Destin Daniel Cretton’s Just Mercy has a compelling and dramatic story and strong lead performances by star / producer Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx and Brie Larson. But it is freighted, as so many big studio pictures about civil rights and social justice, with depictions of racist cops and courts that feel as if they’ve been pulled from To Kill a Mockingbird, which is referenced several times at the outset. The evocation might be the director’s intent, to suggest little has changed over the 60 years since Harper Lee published the book. That makes sense as the film is based on Bryan Stevenson’s published account of his work on behalf of death row inmates in Alabama beginning in the early ‘90s. Jordan plays Stevenson with stalwart resolve and humanity as he puts his Harvard law degree to work for those who can least defend themselves against a bigoted justice system. Foxx is Walter McMillan, a man falsely accused of murder, railroaded by an unscrupulous police chief and sentenced to death on the word of an unreliable witness (a terrific Tim Blake Nelson). The film has more than a few powerful moments — Rob Morgan’s work as war-damaged veteran Herbert Richardson is particularly outstanding — but occasional missteps that detract from an otherwise solid piece of work. A snapping German Shepherd at the entrance to the courtroom felt ham-fisted, and Richardson’s reference to a PTSD diagnosis while certainly possible didn’t feel plausible considering the time period, and Stevenson’s comments to his associate (Larson) about slave ships and lynchings, while all certainly true, felt strangely out of place — directed less at her and more at the audience. Still, the picture packs genuine emotional power.