Just Mercy Review
Just Mercy is a thoughtful meditation on the nature of compassion and
cruelty. It’s a startling reminder that human beings
are capable of both extremes. The film has been adapted from the memoir of
Bryan Stevenson, a Harvard-trained lawyer, who moved to a small town in Alabama
in 1989 to review charges against death row inmates.
Bryan is black like most
of the men he defends. But the system – police, prosecution, judiciary– is
white. Which means there is little hope of justice or mercy. As one of the prisoners
Walter McMillian puts it – you’re guilty from the moment you are born. Director
and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton tells the story with a somber stillness. There
is an overarching compassion but also a measured pace.
It took me a good 15 to
20 minutes to sink into the film. Just Mercy accrues its power slowly. Cretton
builds layer upon layer until suddenly, surprisingly, you find yourself getting
teary. It’s devastating to witness the blatant racism. The upholders of the law
aren’t even trying to pretend that the system is fair. Black men are
denied justice at every step. The film benefits vastly from strong performances
by Michael B. Jordan who plays Bryan Stevenson and Jamie Foxx,
who plays McMillian, a logger who has been framed for the murder of a
white woman.
Jordan plays down his
natural charisma and renders skillfully Bryan’s frustration and resilience. Early
in the film, when Stevenson enters the correctional facility, he is strip
searched. His eyes seem haunted by the humiliation of it – there is no reason
for him to be subjected to this except to satisfy a white cop’s whim. Meanwhile
Foxx stays stoic in the face of discrimination and death. His suffering
gives him a nobility.
He keeps his dignity
intact, which makes the situation even more heart-breaking. When McMillian
finally crumbles, you weep with him. Oscar-winner Brie Larson
also appears as a local advocate who works alongside Stevenson but there isn’t
enough in her character to justify the casting. The centerpiece of Just Mercy
is the execution of a mentally ill prisoner named Herb.
Cretton doesn’t allow us
to look away from what it’s like to take a life. Herb’s request for a certain
song, his fear and eventual acceptance of his fate and the sound made when
electric shocks kill him is just horrific. The sequence eloquently slams the
legal system. Just before he is arrested, McMillian, who is cutting
trees, looks up and contemplates the sky. That patch of blue becomes his solace
as he waits to be hanged for a crime he did not commit.
Cretton returns to it again through the film, making it
a poignant reminder of how much most of us take for granted. Just Mercy isn’t
stylistically dazzling. The chronicle of racism is also familiar. But Cretton
and his leads give the narrative an urgency and timeliness. After all, injustice fueled by bigotry and bias, is a story
currently playing out in every corner of the world,
including ours.
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