Just Mercy: A touching story

Like it or not, racism and injustice are a huge stain on the US. Just Mercy is the true story of a young lawyer who tries, against all odds, to correct some of these injustices where, in many instances, overt racism played a role.

Bryan Stevenson, a young Harvard grad from Delaware, sets up the Equal Justice Institute, whose goal is to save death row inmates, especially those (i.e. almost all) who were poorly defended. His main "target" is Johnny D., put to death for the murder of a young (White) girl and whose condemnation relies on the sole testimony of another criminal...

I don't know what was embellished/"uglied", but this movie shows a VERY troubling part of US history: the mob mentality still subsisted less than a generation after the Civil Rights Act (the murder happened in 87). Monroeville citizens were so desperate to find who killed that girl that they (almost) literally jumped on the first ill-reputated Black man they could find (he cheated on his wife).

And all through the movie, we see the lingering racism and mob mentality: Bryan's strip search to talk to a client, bomb threats to the EJI, the initial unwillingness from the DA to check the flimsy evidence... Michael B Jordan was excellent in his role, and Jamie Foxx gave a good portrayal of the inmate who, after such a long time of being called a murderer, starts believing it...

In short, you must definitely watch this movie at least once. It exposes the injustice in this country that, to this stay, still persists. At the very end, you even see all the inmates EJI saved from death row. So there is still a ray of hope

Final rating: 4.4/5