Just Mercy 4K 2019 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Black lawyer Bryan Stevenson has dedicated himself to fighting for equal rights and opportunities in court for the most vulnerable people - including the indigent who are unable to afford a qualified and interested attorney to help them succeed.

Review 4K Movie

“Just Mercy” is the sort of tale of social injustice that we've seen so many times before that it makes you shudder a little. From “To Kill a Mockingbird” to Rob Reiner's “Ghosts of Mississippi” (by the way, “Just Mercy” seems to reference both works'), there's nothing wrong with these venerable dramas with big-name actors, it's just that this Oscar-bait format has gotten kind of tame by now. So, too, is “Just Mercy Me” - it's a competently shot and even touching story that features talented actors, but the eye is washed out already at the start. Despite the clear representation of the most unpleasant side of modern jurisprudence and the redefinition of the concept of justice, the film came out excessively ordinary and even gray, although for some reason the joke about the large number of “blacks” in the caste.

So, the victim in this story is Walter McMillan - a wrongfully accused man. In the state of Alabama, where every black person is a criminal by default, McMillan has fallen “under the radar” and is being held in prison for the murder of an 18-year-old girl. Walter, of course, did not commit the crime. After five years on death row, Walter meets attorney Bryan Stevenson, a young, ambitious, black Harvard graduate who takes on McMillan's case. Stevenson is aided only by anti-death penalty activist Eva, and the prejudice-intoxicated Alabama authorities are putting the lawyer in a bind. The battle against the system begins.

“Just Mercy” relies too heavily on the plot beats of Norman Jewison's ‘Hurricane’ - seemingly another source of inspiration for the filmmakers. That was the true story of a wrongfully convicted African-American man struggling to free himself from behind bars. “Hurricane” is certainly a less melodramatic (and more intense) movie, but based on the same arguments as ”Just Mercy.” The fight against racism in America may have been fought for a reason, if only because movies like this started coming to the screen, but the message is too outdated. The idea of “don't judge a person by the color of their skin” has been the leitmotif of so many works that “Just Mercy” gets lost among them.

The legal crusade got a word in edgewise, too. Most early films of this type focused more on the figure of the lawyer. “Just Mercy” puts both the lawyer and the victim at the center. The trend is good and the idea is interesting, only it dilutes the attention, and the narrative itself is sweetened: in this case there will be a winner for sure and probably more than one.

That said, “Just Mercy” is an exceptionally Hollywood movie. Yes, Michael B. Jordan, who received critical acclaim, strengthened his filmography with this picture - the public loves such lonely crusaders and stubborn champions. Brie Larson, who won an Oscar for “Room”, performs a minor secondary role, apparently, too, in order to record in the filmography of the project about “fighters against injustice”. Finally, Jamie Foxx, who took on the role for personal reasons, as he has stated in interviews, is perhaps the one who has diluted his role the most - here he is the one who shows good dramatic range.

A fairly traditional prison-court drama tries to be effective and suspenseful, but other than an engaged picture about racial prejudice, probably the emotional involvement of the lead actors, there's not much here. For director Destin Cretton, it's like a walk in the park - everything from the rhythms to the plot twists feels utterly familiar, right down to the self-referential quotes from Short Term 12. In the end, the script doesn't even establish a sense of atmosphere: the same themes of blacks suffering humiliation are tiresome. The whites are suddenly more colorful than the blacks: from the slightly menacing prosecutor played by Rafe Spall to Tim Blake's imprisoned Nelson, they add the necessary texture to enliven a film that is slowly decaying in characters like the high-spirited cellmate and the wise black man. In the end, the conclusion is disappointing: if you take these and other deliberately artistic elements out of the brackets of Just Pardon's concept, a documentary about Stevenson would have made a better story. Few people would have seen it, though, though the story of this indomitable man must be told.