BLACK JUSTICE GENRE FILM SPEAKS OF TRUTH

LAWYER PERSISTS DESPITE THE ODDS IN DEEP SOUTH

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The death penalty is not on trial but the system of justice that puts innocent black men on death row is.

Just Mercy (2019) stars Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson and Tim Blake Nelson in a film about a black man wrongfully convicted of the murder of a white girl in Alabama.

The biopic film of real life events that begin in 1986 adds to a genre of black justice films about the wrongfully convicted.

Director Destin Daniel Cretton adapts the screenplay from the memoir of social justice lawyer Bryan Stevenson, played by Jordan. Brie Larson plays Eva Ansley.

Stevenson and Ansley establish the Equal Justice initiative in Alabama to defend death row inmates from execution.

Foxx plays wrongfully convicted Walter McMillian.

Cretton directs a very linear narrative when typically the subject matter would have been dealt with in a series of flash backs to make the dramatization of real events more suspenseful.

Cretton though shows the injustice of the criminal justice system in the Deep South by making McMillian’s innocence obvious to the audience from the onset without the theatrics and movie magic that can shroud the truth in stories.

“It’s pretty obvious” states the young Harvard lawyer to the city’s chief prosecutor, played by Rafe Spall.

This idea of a justice system so unjust as to be obviously unjust compels the narrative forward with a thin veneer of the documentary genre. Cretton even uses a 60 Minutes clip merged with Foxx’s dramatized character to add to that quality of truth.

Foxx plays a supporting role in the film, although he has an impressive filmography that includes an Oscar for his portrayal of biopic musician Ray Charles in Ray (2004). The casting works well, with Foxx able to successfully take a supporting role similar in importance to the script as his performance as Drew ‘Bundini’ Brown in Ali (2001) starring Will Smith as heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

Cinematography follows this motif of truth by depicting characters in light set as naturally as possible. Cretton tones down the movie art that often makes characters unrealistically interesting when the real characters are interesting enough without the the high octane action flick motif. 

Stevenson’s idealistic persistence results in success only after the lower courts are shown to have made appealable rulings, while life is shown to be a lot of paper work done between the office and the courthouse and visiting the client’s support network.

Cretton underscores that the truth must be revealed as truthfully as possible no matter how discouraging much of the work seems.

The makeup department fits Nelson with a facial prosthetic to depict the convicted felon as he appears in real life after a childhood accident. Nelson has had a number of important supporting roles, including in Lincoln (2012) and in Minority Report (2002).

Jordan and Foxx have a self-reflective intertextual scene in prison during one of the lawyer’s early interviews with his death row client.

The film is all about dialogue with a bit of didacticism to get the truth out about the injustice.

Just Mercy does not quite have the impact of other black justice biopics such as The Hurricane (1999) starring Denzel Washington and Deborah Unger.

The film tells a story worth telling though, with so many wrongfully convicted still in American prisons and likely still in prisons everywhere.

Just Mercy is the Apple TV Movie of the Week.