Michael B. Jordan (left) plays pioneering lawyer Bryan Stevenson seeking a fair trial for Walter McMIllian (Jamie Foxx).
As the white male-dominated Oscar nominations are debated in the media, at least a few movies centering on the lives of black folks are still showing at the multiplex. Having been in sparse local audiences for movies with primarily African American casts — Harriet, Queen & Slim and now Just Mercy — I’m dismayed that the residents of the most segregated state in the U.S. don’t seem to want to confront our race troubles, even from the safety of a movie theater recliner.
Just Mercy, based on the bestselling memoir of pioneering lawyer Bryan Stevenson, forces the audience to face some uncomfortable truths: The criminal justice system looks completely different to black people than it does to white people. The death penalty, still legal in 29 states, is biased and flawed. Many people on Death Row had inadequate, or shoddy, legal representation that led to their convictions. Black lives and families are destroyed by these miscarriages of justice, and our society is suffering because of it.
When Just Mercy begins, Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) is harvesting trees in the forests of Monroe County, Alabama. His life comes crashing down when the sheriff pulls him over for the alleged murder of an 18-year-old woman.
In 1989, Stevenson (played by a stoic Michael B. Jordan) arrives in Alabama, fresh out of Harvard Law with a grant to start the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal organization that works to call attention to racial injustice, including by defending prisoners on Death Row. From Stevenson’s first humiliating strip search at the prison to a racially motivated traffic stop, the young lawyer confronts head-on the racism and unfairness built into the South’s law enforcement culture.
Hawaiian-born director Destin Daniel Cretton lays it on a little thick, driving home points that have already been made by these wonderful actors. Jordan’s Stevenson has a few too many earnest voiceovers about racial justice and “the truth.” The film’s score also gets in the way of the storytelling at times. But these are minor quibbles. Overall, the film feels urgent and raw.
Foxx’s performance as McMillian continues to haunt me. He transforms from the easygoing lumberjack to a stifled, cautious prisoner, who, after so many disappointments and losses, can barely let himself hope for any measure of justice. The film’s close-ups of Death Row inmates, including the entire cell block’s response to an execution, are almost too awful to bear. It’s no wonder Stevenson had to work so hard to crack through McMillian’s defenses.
Hello, United States of America, 2020: This is happening here and now — and not just in the Deep South. We all have some work to do.
