Warner Bros. | Release Date: December 25, 2019 | CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION | ||
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Positive:
37
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews
Stevenson’s story is engaging as the David versus the Goliath of the state’s district attorney. There are a lot of great actors on display and put together it feels like an A-List repertory company featuring Michael B. Jordan, Brie Larson, and Jamie Fox, to name a few. Then add some outstanding supporting veteran and up-and-coming actors, Just Mercy becomes a solid drama and film.
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The pacing is good, the atmosphere authentic, and even the paperwork — which is where the real revolutions in law occur — has a certain kinetic quality to it. And while viewers might think they know where the film is going, and what the payoff is going to be, they’ll still be caught off guard emotionally.
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Just Mercy is incredibly effective at what it sets out to do: change hearts and minds about capital punishment, bring more awareness to the brutality of killing other human beings in the name of the law, and highlight the racism and other issues of structural inequality that lead to the high margin of error in death penalty convictions.
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As true-story dramas about innocent men on death row go, Just Mercy is just above average. I still hope it reaches the widest audience possible. To quote a statistic cited in the film, for every nine prisoners executed in this country, one is found to have been wrongfully convicted. That’s a number to shame a nation.
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The TelegraphJan 22, 2020
While politically unimpeachable, Just Mercy is simply too lethargic to be the major awards race player Warner Bros. were evidently hoping for. It’s a pity for Jordan, who has steel and energy in his part, and an especial shame for Foxx, who gives a beautifully modulated, unflashy and quietly moving performance, easily his best in at least a decade.
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The needless cruelty of the criminal justice system feels like a world begging for more sense-making, but Just Mercy only sees its characters as heroes, victims, or obstacles, not as rational beings who might have their own reasons to knowingly commit terrible acts. Cretton’s desire to focus tightly on McMillian’s case makes sense, but he accidentally makes the white malefactors in the town more fascinating for their villainy.
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The GuardianSep 8, 2019
Just Mercy is a “true story” encased in amber. Its politics are inert. The story only works as escapism, where we clap at hearing the least dangerous of truths spoken aloud and once again entertain the delusion that one man calling bullshit on a corrupt system is enough to defeat it. These days that only seems to work in superhero movies.
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