In
2014, Equal Justice Initiative founder/executive director, Harvard law
graduate, American attorney and NYU professor Bryan Stevenson published the
memoir Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and
Redemption to enormous critical and commercial success. Winning the Andrew Carnegie Medal for
Excellence in Nonfiction and selected by Time Magazine as one of the 10 Best
Books of Nonfiction, Just Mercy told
the story of Walter McMillian, an African-American manager of his own arborist
company who finds himself framed and convicted for the murder of a white woman
in 1986 by the Monroe County, Alabama sheriff and sentenced to death. That is, until Stevenson ventured down to
Alabama fresh out of law school and with the help of Eva Ansley set up the
Equal Justice Initiative and began providing legal services to inmates on death
row, McMillian among them.
Now
five years later, the story has been made into a film by Hawaiian filmmaker Destin
Daniel Cretton with Creed actor Michael
B. Jordan in the role of Bryan Stevenson and Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillian. Brie Larson appears in a supporting role as
Eva Ansley who helped build the foundation of the Equal Justice Initiative law
firm but largely this is a prison/court-procedural largely led by strong
performances from Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx. A David vs. Goliath tale of injustice and a
corrupt legal system with Stevenson steadily pushing uphill with his care for
McMillian, it’s an often tense and moving story aided beautifully by the two central cast members.
Akin
to The Hurricane with Denzel
Washington and Marshall with Chadwick
Boseman, which told the story of the first African-American Supreme Court
Justice, it’s a civil rights movie that’s been told countless times before but
still works as a compelling drama and an actor’s film. Both Jordan and Foxx are really good though
arguably Rob Morgan steals the show with his supporting turn as death row
prisoner Herbert Richardson. Watch his
scenes where he comes to terms with his impending execution and try and tell me
this isn’t one of the great supporting performances of the year! Also worth noting is Tim Blake Nelson who I’m
convinced will spend the rest of his career playing a redneck.
Visually
and sonically it’s a handsome looking and sounding film with graceful
cinematography by Brett Pawlak who intersperses classily composed medium shots
of the actors in the prison with documentary-esque shots of the residents of
Alabama during an early montage sequence.
The moody and soulful score by Joel P. West provides a rich southern
flavor to the proceedings, frequently shifting between melancholic low-key jazz
and spoken word gospel. Moreover, it’s a
subtle score that never veers towards becoming bombastic or overproduced.
Currently
Mr. Cretton is slated to direct an upcoming MCU film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, but until then, the
writer-director has fashioned a compelling and ultimately moving drama of one
man fighting against a system colluding to keep an innocent man imprisoned and
eventually killed out of still-ongoing prejudices in the Deep South. Though most will know the outcome looking up
the film’s subject matter, what’s here is a well-acted and directed civil
rights drama well worth your time featuring multiple gifted performances from
some of the industry’s finest actors working today!
--Andrew Kotwicki
