BEFORE: Another film working off the "legal" theme that's taken over the last few days of April. This week's been brought to you by the FBI, the CIA, and court cases in Atlanta, Washington DC, and tonight, we're in Alabama. Tim Blake Nelson carries over from "The Report".
THE PLOT: Civil rights defense attorney Bryan Stevenson works to free a wrongly condemned death row prisoner.
AFTER: This is the third movie in a row that was available to me on an Academy screener, but (I think) didn't receive any Oscar nominations. But it wasn't for lack of trying, I saw countless invitations for screenings in NYC and LA in my boss's e-mails, which signifies to me that some distribution company THOUGHT these three films were award-worthy, and that's a tell-tale sign of Oscar bait. At some level, perhaps many levels, people got involved with this film (and "Richard Jewell", and "The Report") because they thought it might lead to a nomination for something. So now I'm really questioning everything about these three films - like did some writers choose these topics for screenplays because of their importance, or did they have little gold statues on their brains? Did the director choose these projects for personal reasons, or to get Oscars? Were Jamie Foxx, Annette Bening, Clint Eastwood just trying to add to their awards totals - once you win an Oscar, in other words, does that color your choices of films going forward?
I can't dispute that this topic is an important one, if there are people who have been wrongfully imprisoned, and other people are working hard to get those people released, yes, of course, I believe that more people should learn about those efforts. But on the other hand, I feel like this topic has been covered in movies, before, and it doesn't really surprise me to learn that there are racist people in the southern U.S. states. I think that's been seen in many movies, going back at least as far as "In the Heat of the Night", and going even further back, to "To Kill a Mockingbird" (a book/film that not so coincidentally gets referenced several times in "Just Mercy", because it's partially set in Monroeville, Alabama, which is author Harper Lee's hometown).
So I wasn't really feeling this one tonight, I just think that ground like this has been covered before, and I felt it was a bit manipulative, by showing us one case after another where the lawyer's motions were dismissed by the court, and another inmate who doesn't get to escape his execution, which is an obvious foil-character tactic so that the audience will appreciate what was at stake for the lead inmate. Duh, we know what the electric chair is, we don't have to see an execution to realize the danger that comes with being on death row. I feel like the director thought he had to spoon-feed me information like this so I would understand the main case, but I'm able to make these connections without somebody holding my hand, thanks.
Like, it's made clear here that in the main case, the defendant was railroaded by the system, that much is proven by the fact that all of his relatives were willing to testify that he had an alibi for his whereabouts on the day of the murder, only none of them were called to testify. On the other hand, the convict who goes to the electric chair admits his guilt, and that's all just a little bit too convenient. Wouldn't cases that were a little more nebulous be a little more entertaining, from an audience's point of view? When everything is made so crystal clear (umm, except where the Alabama courts are concerned) that kind of takes all the suspense out of the situation, right?
I want to state again that I support the Equal Justice Initiative and I believe their work in freeing wrongly convicted people is very important, I just don't think this was the right format to highlight their mission, because everything here felt very contrived, and making all the complex issues so clear-cut was done in a way that really dumbed it all down, and that's unfortunate.
Also starring Michael B. Jordan (last seen in "Creed II"), Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Baby Driver"), Brie Larson (last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Rob Morgan (last seen in "The Week Of"), Rafe Spall (last seen in "Men in Black: International"), O'Shea Jackson Jr. (last seen in "Long Shot"), Darrell Britt-Gibson (last seen in "20th Century Women"), Kirk Bovill (ditto), Rhoda Griffis (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Lindsay Ayliffe (last seen in "Dumb and Dumber To"), C.J. LeBlanc, Ron Clinton Smith (last seen in "Logan Lucky"), Dominic Bogart (also last seen in "The Glass Castle"), Hayes Mercure, Karan Kendrick (last seen in "The Hate U Give"), Andrene Ward-Hammond (ditto), Terence Rosemore (last seen in "Fist Fight"), Michael Harding (last seen in "Triple 9"), Christopher Wolfe, J. Alphonse Nicholson, Jacinte Blankenship, Brad Sanders, Charmin Lee, Sebastian Eugene Hansen, John Lacy, Tim Hooper, Greta Glenn, Tim Ware (last seen in "Night School"), Steve Coulter (last seen in "The Wizard of Lies"), Scarlet Olivia Dunbar, Denitra Isler (last seen in "The Leisure Seeker"), Darryl W. Handy, Al Mitchell, the voice of Norm Lewis and a cameo from the real Bryan Stevenson.
RATING: 4 out of 10 motions to dismiss
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