When Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) first comes to Monroe County Alabama, locals the white ones, at least keep telling him he needs to visit the museum dedicated to hometown hero Harper Lee andTo Kill a Mockingbird, as if thats all he needs to know about race and justice in the American South.
It becomes a little bit of a punchline; one of not many inJust Mercy, a fact-based death-row drama that works as a blunt but effective instrument, thanks largely to its irrefutable message and the central performance ofJamie Foxxas Johnnie D., a man sentenced to die for a crime theres almost no chance he could have committed.
Its 1987, and Stevenson, a Delaware native straight out of Harvard Law School, believes he can help inmates like Johnnie, Herbert (Stranger Things Rob Morgan, in a devastating turn), and Anthony (OShea Jackson Jr.) men whose fates often hinged on not much more than an incompetent attorney or a police chief looking for a quick end to an ugly case.
Credit: Jake Giles Netter/Warner Bros.
Monroe County, unsurprisingly, doesnt welcome a young black lawyer, particularly one looking to free the man theyve already judged and juried as the killer of a white teenager named Ronda Morrisson.
(Its clear to nearly everyone else from the outset that he didnt do it, though the movie doesnt get around to addressing who did.)
The only real ally Stevenson finds is a local wife and mother named Eva Ansley (Brie Larson, incognito in high-waisted jeans and a mud-colored home perm); together, they methodically rework cases whose incriminating evidence was patchy at best to begin with, and often staggeringly ill-won.
Its solidly rewarding to watch the wheels ofMercyturn, though the direction (by Destin Daniel Cretton, who helmed 2013s greatShort Term 12) cant seem to help falling into certain schematics that tend to follow movies like these: the original sin; the uplift; the leering good-old-boy sheriffs; the big-moment court scenes.
What continually floats the film is the commitment of its excellent cast, and the intrinsic truth at its core: that justice shouldnt be divided by black and white, even if the message that delivers it sometimes is.B
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