Just Mercy movie comes to us from the director of the Glass Castle and Short Term 12 films. The movie tells the true-life story of a lawyer named Bryan Stevenson played by Michael B. Jordan, who defended a man named Walter McMillan played by Jamie Foxx who was on death row for a crime he swears he didn’t commit.
This film takes place in Alabama where a small community is mourning the loss of a woman who was gunned down. And despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary they have decided to indict this man Walter McMillan for this murder.
This director’s last film the Glass Castle didn’t really work for me. I just found myself consistently checking out from that story, and I never really got invested. This film, however, was the complete opposite. This is a very interesting story.
For instance, I have the DVD screener of it and my wife was not going to watch it with me she was busy doing something else. I was about 15 minutes into the movie she came downstairs for like a second just to say hi watch like one scene and ended up sitting for the entire movie, because you get wrapped up in it.
It’s one of those movies that makes you feel like you want to do something. You know what I mean, like when you hear about injustice that so obviously a parent that’s like factually in just.
It makes you upset and it makes you want to see the people involved get their just too. Michael B. Jordan is terrific as always as Bryan Stevenson. He’s one of the best actors of this current generation.
And Jamie Foxx gives probably his best performance I’ve seen from him since collateral and ray in 2004, when we have those too Oscar-nominated in one case Oscar-winning performances back to back.
he comes in the screen with a performance that does not say Hey look at me I’m an actor, he’s extremely subtle. He’s very quiet in this movie. Sometimes, he just whispers his lines.
There are a select few scenes with emotional outbursts, which can be a real trap for movies like this to fall into. When you have these uplifting in powering dramas especially legal dramas.
It’s very easy to start yelling and shouting and pointing fingers every single scene, but this movie doesn’t do that. The characters that you’re rooting for are the respectful ones in the room the entire time.
They look at people they look at obvious injustice, and they keep a straight face the whole time even though on the inside you can tell they are boiling over. The film can feel a bit conventional at times you can sort of see where things are going.
There’s going to be a struggle. He’s going to try to go to courts, and get something to prove and nobody’s gonna believe him. There’s gonna be racists and they’re going to say things and you’re going to get angry and all of that happens.
It’s a true story based off the lawyers book and while some things have been changed and shifted for dramatic purposes obviously, for the most part, I found this movie to be a very realistic portrayal of this story, based off of my research anyway.
And despite some of the genre conventions, that you’re going to see in this legal drama that’s about injustice. It’s really hard not to get wrapped up in it and it’s very hard not to feel moved in some way.
I’m going to give Just Mercy movie a B-plus.
This is yet another movie coming out on Christmas day and it’s a good one you should check it out, but it’s not exactly a feel-good movie. Because so much of it you’re just angry and you want to do something.
But it has a way of making you feel uplifted even one character are dealing with severe adversity. Guys, thank you so much as always for reading my review. Look forward to more reviews very soon. See you next time.
