Movie Reaction: Just Mercy

Formula: The Verdict * In the Heat of the Night

In 1987, Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) was imprisoned and put on death row for murder on a flimsy case, despite a mountain of evidence proving his innocence. Just Mercy is a movie about the lawyer (Michael B. Jordan) who take's McMillian's case and tries to make him the first man on death row cleared in Alabama history. He has to fight a system that's both discretely and overtly racist and combat a D.A. and police department whose reputations are tied to proving they didn't mess up. This is a perfect story for a movie. It's full of colorful characters. There's a fish out of water element, with the lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, coming to Alabama from Delaware by way of Harvard. The actual story happened recently enough to see easy parallels with the current day but long enough ago that it doesn't feel like a direct attack on the region. As the true-crime boom of the last few years will confirm, people love stories about police conspiracy. The racism angle makes it easily a black-and-white issue.

Just Mercy is a well-made movie in nearly every way. Michael B. Jordan continues to build his impressive list of award snubs*. Jamie Foxx gives a supporting performance that's stripped down and reminds me why he's found Oscar love in the past. The story is compelling. Director Destin Daniel Cretton has made a process movie that still has a lot of emotion. It's the kind of movie where, if someone in the audience wants to clap for it at the end, I don't roll my eyes. It's a crowdpleaser with real issues on its mind.

*Seriously, how is his only high-profile nomination at this point a single Emmy nomination for, I guess, producing Fahrenheit 451?

However, I got a little bored watching this. It's a problem I run into a lot lately with movies that follow a common formula. This movie is only surprising if you've never seen a movie before. I was never in doubt about if McMillian was innocent or not. I never questioned that the police were racist and out to get him. I never worried about if he would eventually be freed. Everyone in this movie played their parts exactly as I've seen dozens of times before. I think the pendulum has swung too far, and I'm starting to get more curious about characters other than the wrongly-accused and the defense attorney. There are a lot of people convinced that McMillian is guilty. Why? And I don't mean this in a "both sides" sense. I mean, the police, the D.A., and the victim's family have convinced themselves that McMillian is guilty. How did they get to that point with shaky evidence? Did they essentially frame him due to racism, laziness, incompetence? If so, which? The movie takes the "because they're the bad guys" approach, which I'm starting to find boring. It's not just Just Mercy either. I had the same problem with Richard Jewell too. It's what bothers me about most evil banker movies. The more movies I see, the more I recognize the same patterns.

That's not really the movie's fault. Just Mercy plays to the exact audience it wants to. It would rather be a superior example of a familiar story than something new and unexpected. That's perfectly fine. Some people have a higher tolerance for crime-dramas than I do, in the same way that I never get tired of high school coming-of-age stories. Frankly, we need as many movies like Just Mercy as we can get. I like the idea of stories about people fighting for what's right and winning being more common. I should see 5 Just Mercys for every one Dark Waters. I like the discussion of race in the movie. I think the awards season is more interesting when Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx (Brie Larson too has a nice supporting role) are in the mix. I liked this movie. I just wish I could be more enthusiastic about it.

Verdict: Weakly Recommend