Worthy, yes, but death row drama is poorly executed
JUST Mercy tells a true story — that of an idealistic young lawyer called Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan), who at the start of the film, set in the late 1980s, is a humble intern working towards his Harvard law degree.
Rather like a legal version of Sidney Poitier’s detective in In The Heat Of The Night, Bryan is an African-American from the North who is shocked by the institutionalised racism of the South.
In Monroeville, Alabama — the very town which partly inspired Harper Lee, who grew up there, to write To Kill A Mockingbird — he finds a flagrant miscarriage of justice.
A black man, Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) is on death row, having been convicted of murdering an 18-year-old white woman.
The evidence that nailed him is flimsy to say the least, and the police and district attorney know it, but the district attorney (Rafe Spall, dishing up some great Southern-fried vowels) is adamant that Walter, nicknamed Johnny D, deserves the electric chair.
Destin Daniel Cretton’s film follows Bryan’s attempts to prove otherwise, hinging largely on him persuading another convict (Tim Blake Nelson, in wonderful sleazebag mode) to admit that he lied about Johnny D in court.
It’s a shocking tale that deserves to be widely known, but Cretton undermines it himself by effectively portraying Bryan, who in real life has gone on to save many other prisoners sentenced to the death penalty, as a secular saint.
There are lots of movies about racist wrongdoings in the American South, but the best of them simply tell the story, without trying to correct the injustices themselves.
That’s where this film goes wrong. Even death row is presented as a citadel of nobility, with every police station and courtroom a moral vacuum, while the narrative overflows with cliches and gossamer-thin characterisation.
Just because Bryan’s colleague is played by Brie Larson, doesn’t mean her lines have to be quite so cheesy.
Waves, another African-American story, is a smaller release but a much better bet, and a bravura piece of film-making by Trey Edward Shults.
His last movie was the terrific 2017 horror-thriller It Comes At Night, but this is very different — a forensic portrayal of a decent family in emotional meltdown.
Kelvin Harrison Jr is excellent as Tyler Williams,
a talented teenage athlete with a pretty girlfriend whose world begins to cave in after he sustains a career-threatening injury.
His life continues to spiral out of control in ways I shouldn’t disclose here, but what it means is that Shults hands the second half of the film to Tyler’s sister Emily (a similarly fine performance by Taylor Russell). Lucas Hedges is splendid, too, as Emily’s boyfriend, a young man with troubles of his own (I sometimes wonder wether US directors have to sign a pledge to cast only Hedges, or possibly Timothee Chalamet, as tormented young adults). And so is Sterling K. Brown as Tyler and Emily’s well-meaning but domineering father.
It’s a compelling film and, I might add, a safer investment of time and money than A Hidden Life (see above), which is worth noting because Shults is a protege of Terrence Malick, who in this week’s releases is comprehensively mastered by his apprentice.