Just Mercy **** (2019, Michael B Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson) – Movie Review

Michael B Jordan and Jamie Foxx, form a strong partnership as Harvard-educated pro bono civil rights defence attorney Bryan Stevenson and Walter McMillian, a wrongly condemned Alabama death row prisoner he works tirelessly for years to free, after he is called in to save the man who was sentenced to die for the murder of an 18-year-old girl in 1987.

Co-writer/ director Destin Daniel Cretton’s gripping 2019 true-story drama Just Mercy has winning ways. Persuasive and compelling, it pulls the audience over on its side all the way. The thing is, though, this is a story that doesn’t look as though it could possibly have a happy ending.

Jordan and Foxx, give impeccable, note perfect performances, and Tim Blake Nelson scores strongly as creepy Ralph Myers, though Brie Larson has rather thin sidekick role as Stevenson’s loyal helper, local advocate Eva Ansley, and Rafe Spall is miscast off his home ground as Tommy Chapman.

It is a long film at 137 minutes, covering many years, but it is engrossing and involving throughout, with a strong, clear, powerful narrative line. It is, in part, a courtroom drama, as well as a David nd Goliath battle for justice against the odds, and this kind of film is practically guaranteed fail safe.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Movie Review

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