Just Mercy
Warner Bros. | Release Date: December 25, 2019 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
68
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 50 Critic Reviews
Positive:
37
Mixed:
13
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
88
Washington PostAnn HornadayJan 6, 2020
In the judicious hands of director and co-writer Destin Daniel Cretton, it feels not new exactly, but fresh and urgent and more timely than ever. Read full review
88
New York PostSara StewartDec 18, 2019
Profoundly moving and, at times, almost unbearably sad. Read full review
80
The Observer (UK)Mark KermodeJan 20, 2020
As for Foxx and Jordan, their dialled-down discipline pays dividends, lending greater weight to those few moments (a courtroom showdown, a jailhouse breakdown) when Cretton briefly turns up the dramatic heat, with rousing results. Read full review
80
The Irish TimesTara BradyJan 18, 2020
Just Mercy is commendably restrained in its courtroom scenes – there is none of the contempt-baiting wailing and gnashing of teeth that too often characterises legal procedurals. Read full review
80
Total FilmJames MottramJan 17, 2020
Jamie Foxx is on awards-worthy form. Read full review
80
IGNJoi ChildsJan 9, 2020
Powerful performances and solid direction elevate the conventional but impassioned fact-based drama Just Mercy. Read full review
80
The New YorkerRichard BrodyJan 7, 2020
While displaying the erratic workings of the law and the crucial importance of journalism, the movie’s legal focus narrows its imaginative scope; the drama, though infuriating and moving, sticks to its characters’ surfaces. Read full review
80
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 26, 2019
It’s the actors who make this real-life legal procedural come alive. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenFeb 19, 2020
Just Mercy is a testament to what talented actors can do with material that might otherwise be stifling. Read full review
75
Paste MagazineOktay Ege Kozak Jan 9, 2020
It’s genuinely passionate about telling the tale of a man who sought the truth and applied it to attain true equality under the law. Perfectly executed or not, we need these kinds of stories these days. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperJan 8, 2020
This film is a symphony of recognizable notes. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleJan 8, 2020
Just Mercy isn’t the best movie that could have been made from its subject, but it’s good enough. Read full review
75
ObserverOliver JonesJan 8, 2020
The beating heart of the film, this performance is further evidence of what a gift Foxx’s late career shift to supporting parts has been for filmgoers. Read full review
75
USA TodayBrian TruittJan 7, 2020
A solid courtroom drama that most fans of the genre have seen before. But great acting, an engaging real-life tale and moments of heartfelt honesty – with a fair bit of rousing satisfaction – elevate director Destin Daniel Cretton’s true-life story. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 7, 2020
Just Mercy is a movie about a touchstone case that proved that to be a lie, a righteous, well-intentioned but uneven emotional roller coaster of a film that plays it safe a little too often itself. Read full review
75
Film ThreatAlan NgDec 27, 2019
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. Read full review
75
The Associated PressMark KennedyDec 26, 2019
Just Mercy is not always an easy film to watch, but it is necessary. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerDec 17, 2019
The filmmakers and actors imbue the characters with remarkable depth of feeling. Read full review
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzSep 10, 2019
Jordan and Foxx take the little material they’re given and play it as deep as possible, turning in memorable, eventually gut-punching performances. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattSep 9, 2019
It’s solidly rewarding to watch the wheels of Mercy turn, though the direction ... can’t seem to help falling into certain schematics that tend to follow movies like these: the original sin; the uplift; the leering good-old-boy sheriffs; the big-moment court scenes. Read full review
75
The Film StageChristopher SchobertSep 8, 2019
It is impossible to walk away from Just Mercy unmoved. ... Yet Destin Daniel Cretton’s third feature also feels a bit predictable, a bit obvious, and never quite as compelling as one might expect. Read full review
75
IndieWireEric KohnSep 8, 2019
While the movie runs too long and the message grows thin, it’s a sturdy window into the corruption of the judicial process that can send an innocent black man to death row. Read full review
70
Screen RantChris AgarJan 16, 2020
It may not push the envelope or be as innovative as other films out right now, but Just Mercy is nevertheless able to captivate the audience and could even inspire people to try to make a difference. Read full review
70
The New York TimesA.O. ScottDec 26, 2019
Just Mercy is saved from being an earnest, inert courtroom drama when it spends time on death row, where it is opened up and given depth by two strong, subtle performances, from Foxx and Rob Morgan. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriDec 26, 2019
Jordan has a great face for doubt and inner conflict. There’s a quizzical, nervous quality to him — which is also why when he does action movies, he’s so wonderfully unpredictable — and you can sense his devotion to justice clashing with his genuine fear. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranDec 23, 2019
The film portrays the ferocious resistance of some people to the possibility that this man had nothing to do with the crime. And that’s when Just Mercy is at its best. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonDec 19, 2019
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. Read full review
70
Vanity FairRichard LawsonSep 8, 2019
It’s a rousing and moving enough film that one is compelled to excuse the limits of its artistry. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanSep 8, 2019
Cretton ... finds a newly supple way to deliver a liberal Hollywood knockout punch. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSep 8, 2019
A straightforward biopic ... The film's edge is somewhat dulled by respect for its subject, who's drawn here as more hero than man. Read full review
70
Screen DailyWendy IdeSep 8, 2019
Although conventional in its approach, the film is a forceful reckoning of a broken legal system. Read full review
70
TheWrapSteve PondSep 8, 2019
Cretton has made and will make subtler movies, but probably none that will prompt as many mid-screening rounds of applause. Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarjorie BaumgartenJan 8, 2020
This solid if predictable courtroom drama is elevated by a terrific cast and impassioned subject matter. Read full review
67
ConsequenceSarah KurchakSep 26, 2019
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. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrJan 8, 2020
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. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsJan 6, 2020
What’s missing, I think, is a sense of human complication within an inhuman judicial sphere. While Foxx works wonders, especially in his scenes with Jordan, Just Mercy rarely gets under the skin or behind the eyes of McMillian. Read full review
63
RogerEbert.comOdie HendersonDec 23, 2019
Movies like Just Mercy spoon-feed everything to the viewer in easily digestible chunks that assume you know nothing, or worse, don’t know any better. Read full review
60
SlashfilmAbby OlceseMar 26, 2020
Just Mercy ends up being a fairly bland crowd pleaser that doesn’t pick up the momentum it should until the final act. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyJan 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. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottJan 16, 2020
It does enough things right, and generates enough powerful moments, to make it an effective social-justice drama. Read full review
60
EmpireTerri WhiteJan 13, 2020
An important story of injustice inspires but fails to fully ignite, despite two towering central performances from Jamie Foxx and Michael B. Jordan. Read full review
60
The AtlanticDavid SimsJan 10, 2020
It’s a remarkable story, but a cinematically limited one, constantly in danger of seeming more like a news summary than a narrative work. Read full review
60
SlateInkoo KangDec 11, 2019
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. Read full review
60
VoxAlissa WilkinsonSep 8, 2019
The film is smartly designed to deliver its message into as many hearts as possible. Read full review
60
The GuardianBenjamin LeeSep 8, 2019
Cretton ... can’t quite rise to the material or his performers, choosing anonymity over ferocity, making the dullest, safest decision at every turn. It’s not enough to topple the fascinating true story at his film’s centre but it does have a frustrating, flattening effect. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangSep 8, 2019
The movie is almost exactly what you’d expect: It has stirring speeches, infuriating setbacks and a tendency to overstate the obvious. Read full review
58
The PlaylistJason BaileySep 8, 2019
It’s just uninspired, a by-the-books courtroom drama, full of big speeches about justice and equality and Doing What’s Right, moved along by montages and fake-outs. Read full review
50
UproxxVince ManciniJan 9, 2020
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. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 26, 2019
Jamie Foxx, compelled to take the role for personal reasons, turns in what could arguable be the best performance of a varied career. (Others might say that the distinction belongs to his work in Ray.) Read full review
50
Slant MagazineJake ColeSep 7, 2019
In a time when awareness and acknowledgement of racial bias and extrajudicial measures by law enforcement in America is at its most widespread, such scenes feel condescendingly pitched to an unconverted audience of the imagination. Read full review
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