Review: Just Mercy
Based on a true story about civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy fell right in that unfortunate dead zone for movie releases: not early enough in the year to be considered for any awards, but too early in the following year to go unnoticed. Whether or not the film would’ve garnered any awards traction is debatable. While the movie is surely propped up by a couple of power-house performances in Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan, the filmmaking has a stale quality to it.
The film follows a recent Harvard Law grad (Jordan) who comes to the defense of a wrongly accused death row inmate (Foxx). If it weren’t for the topic and the performances, the film would especially fall flat. There are no writing or directing decisions that make this movie stand out in an increasingly prominent social justice genre. The film holds our attention, though, with a few standout scenes and an important story. It might not be something audiences rush out to the theater to see, but I hope it gets a second life when it hits streaming services and VOD later in the year.