The true events that form the foundation of “Just Mercy” took place twenty years ago, but they echo sadly through many centuries, all the way to the present from the distant past. Harvard Grad Bryan Stevenson, the voice of social justice who campaigned to exonerate convicted people in Alabama, relies on the beats of a traditional procedural court to demonstrate the many obstacles involved in the battle against false convictions. It turns out that this material doesn’t need fancy tricks when it comes to Michael B. Jordan, who brings such a compelling drive as the indefatigable Stevenson that he takes the movie virtually on his own over the finish line.
Yet it does have more to it than that. The social-justice crowdpleaser “Just Mercy” is a reality that founder Daniel Cretton had to look at the structural problems in smaller sizes and committed personalities grappling with the system at some stage after his 2013 Short Term 12 disintegration. (It’s also a welcome return to form after the misbegotten family drama “The Glass Castle.”) Cretton adapts Stevenson’s 2014 bestseller with a strong hand about his attempts to exonerate Alabama family man Walter McMillian. Although it’s a long film and its message grows thin, a black innocent man has been thrown to death through a strong opening in the corruption of the judiciary.
Warner Bros.
About the Equal Justice Initiative
The Equal Justice Initiative aims at putting an end to compulsory imprisonment in the United States and overpunishing them, confronting social and economic inequality, and safeguarding fundamental human rights for the most disadvantaged in American society.
