Just Mercy (2019)
A movie about hope that just left me depressed.
When I saw the first preview for Just Mercy, I rolled my eyes and found myself feeling annoyed that there was yet another “based on a true story” film about race and racism. I feared it would be 2019’s Greenbook, a movie that I didn’t enjoy watching and hated even more once I found out all about its scandalous production. Based solely on the trailer (and my perception of Hollywood), I thought Just Mercy would be a film that discussed race without actually discussing race. I thought this would be a film that had been whitewashed to make it more commercially consumable.
I judged this movie by its trailer and I was wrong.
While I think Just Mercy was okay as a movie, I think the message is an overwhelmingly important one. More than that, it was far better than many of the other true story flicks that Hollywood is constantly churning out today. This movie was thoughtful and focused on far more than just the relationship between Bryan (Michael B. Jordan) and Johnny D (Jamie Foxx), but showed the larger system that these two men were fighting against. This film really set the stage and immersed us into this world, our world, from maybe a different perspective than we’re used to. Because it was set only 30 years ago, it’s recent enough to be similar to our nation today but far enough in…
