Just Mercy
Ten Second Review: While not perfect, the powerful acting and even more powerful story are worth the film’s weaker aspects.
To my fault, I wasn’t familiar with the case of Walter McMillan before this film. It is easily one of the greatest joys and importance a film can give to bring important stories to wider audiences. Above all accolades this film is due, bringing this story to a wider audience is certainly top of the list.
After working a day as a wood feller in Alabama, Walter McMillan is met with a roadblock for his arrest. Before even being tried, he’s put on death row and subsequently found guilty of the murder of a young white woman named Ronda Morrison. After several years of sitting in death row, McMillan is assigned a lawyer fighting the death penalty, but he doesn’t just think the case is weak, he thinks it’s a false accusation.
Off the bat, the acting in Just Mercy is spot on. Powerful without being over dramatic, it finds that balance that really sells the importance of the story. Foxx’s Oscar snub for supporting actor is a travesty. While I enjoyed Pitt in Once upon a tile in Hollywood, there is certainly more range and depth here and it seems shocking that hasn’t been recognised. Michael B Jordan also plays his role as Stevenson, the lawyer, very well and the you can feel the passion that both the character and the real life person must feel.
The wider cast, Larson, Spall and so on, do amazing work in fleshing out this world and you quickly get a sense of who these characters are.
The weaker aspects of the film are few and far between but I suppose the slightly laboured speeches made toward the end are a touch heavy handed. It’s not that the writing is bad necessarily, but the delicate touch the film has is ever so slightly compromised in the spoon feeding of the central message. I can’t quite see a way around this as the build to a climax somewhat requires it and for all I know they could literally be transcripts from the hearings.
The film manages to answer near enough every question I can see a person having and while there are some deviations form the true to life story, they have clear reasoning and only really serve to streamline the film rather than alter the story.
Certainly a film worth seeing but if you’re tight on time or money it doesn’t necessarily gain much from the big screen treatment. I definitely recommend watching but I imagine it’s just as moving watched on the sofa.
