Director Report Card: Destin Daniel Cretton (2019)

5. Just Mercy

“The Glass Castle” might not have garnered the kind of award season attention it so desperately wanted but Destin Daniel Cretton clearly continued to be a filmmaker that producers sought out for “important” films. “Just Mercy” is a memoir by Bryan Stevenson, an attorney who has worked to overturn the death penalty for wrongfully convicted prisoners. Broad Green Pictures acquired the film rights to the book, with Cretton becoming attached to direct shortly afterwards. Scooped up by Warner Brothers shortly after that, “Just Mercy” was released in December of 2019. Clearly, this was another would-be Oscar contender. Once again, it didn't exactly work out but “Just Mercy” still earned mostly excellent reviews.

Bryan Stevenson studies law at Harvard because he wants to help people. While still in school he meets a man on death row, who is black, young, and from the same sort of neighborhood as him. In 1989, he travels to Alabama to co-found an initiative to overturn death penalty convictions. There he comes across the case of Walter “Johnny D.” McMillian, a black man awaiting execution after being found guilty for the murder of a white woman. Bryan quickly uncovers numerous inconsistencies in the evidence: That his entire family was at home with Johnny when the murder supposedly took place, that the sole witness changed his story numerous times. Yet Stevenson faces an uphill battle, and considerable intimidation, convincing the local courts to overturn the conviction.

“Just Mercy” struck me, more than anything else, as an autopsy of injustice. As Stevenson digs into the case, he gets a clearer picture of how hard McMillian was railroaded. He uncovers the staggering evidence against McMillian being a murderer, with an entire household full of people providing alibis only being the beginning. He soon learns that the man who claimed McMillian was the killer was intimidated and bribed by local police to accuse him. Afterwards, it's uncovered that McMillian was placed on death row before he was even convicted. The exact reason why a random black man would be falsely accused, and rushed into prison, for a crime he didn't commit in rural Alabama is not hard to guess. Walter's own wife calls it a “modern day lynching" and she's not wrong.

This is far from the only parallel between the McMillian case and America's racist past. Upon arriving at the prison, the film pans over to a field full of black prisoner working under watch of a horseback guard with a gun, an image obviously evocative of southern plantation slavery. Shortly after arriving at the prison, Stevevon is strip-searched even though this is not normal for lawyers. As he progresses further into uncovering McMillian's innocence, the young attorney is harassed by local police. Even after successfully getting the lone witness to recant his previous story in court, the local judge still refuses to overturn the conviction. It feels like a hopeless situation and that's, all too often, exactly what being a black man in America feels like. “Just Mercy” depicts, all too clearly, how this country's legal institutions are designed to punish anyone who isn't white.

"Just Mercy" is, obviously and unapologetically, an "issues" movie. Yet the unfettered racism of the American law system is not the only issue it's about. McMillian is not the only death row inmate Stevenson seeks to help. Herbert Richardson is badly traumatized Vietnam veteran who, in a state of mind he still doesn't understand, blew up his girlfriend's house with a homemade bomb. Despite his clear mental trauma, he was still given the death penalty. Richardson is eventually executed, which Stevenson witnesses and is among the film's most bracing moments. "Just Mercy" ends with a title card informing us how many wrongfully convicted prisoners have been put to death. Considering this is a film more broadly about racial injustice, the anti-death penalty scenes do feel a bit like a digression... But it's a compelling one. "Just Mercy" is, if nothing else, utterly sincere about this topic and determined to make its feelings clearly known. 

Watching as a suburban white guy, it's pretty clear to me that "Just Mercy" is a movie obviously designed to invoke a specific feeling in white audiences. It's a film made to expose injustice and make viewers more aware of the harsh realities anybody who isn't white faces in America. Yet the system is ultimately exonerated. It takes an incredible battle on the legal team's behalf but Johnny D. is ultimately freed. So was at least one of the other convicts depicted in the film, the pre-credits title card informs us. Compare this to a movie like "12 Years a Slave" – which was directed by a black man – which ends by making it perfectly clear that small victories do not cut out the racist heart of this country. "Just Mercy" is inspiring and effective at conveying its message but maybe a hopeful note isn't how you won't to end this movie, when black people are still disproportionately abused by the law.

At the very least, "Just Mercy" is smart enough to cast a black man in the lead role, preventing it from falling into the "white people solve racism" genre. (In fact, "To Kill a Mockingbird" – the ultimate white people solve racism movie – is ironically referenced several times throughout this film.) Bryan Stevenson is played by Michael B. Jordon. Compared to his fiery, star-making turns in "Creed" or "Black Panther," Jordon is subdued here. When personally attacked by the racist institutions of Alabama, he trembles with silent rage. Yet compassion is what drives Stevenson, not anger. Jordan fantastically captures this idea, that empathy is our greatest weapon in our battle against injustice and racism.

The other big star in the movie is Jamie Foxx as Walter MacMillian. Foxx obviously has the showiest role in the movie. He gets a speech towards the middle of the film, where he describes astutely and plainly how his experience as an innocent man rolled over by a horribly racist institution makes him feel. Yeah, this is obviously the Oscar Clip moment for Foxx in this movie. Yet Foxx is still really good here. He does an excellent job of balancing two attributes of MacMillian. He is someone who has been beaten down repeatedly by an unjust system. He's angry and frustrated. Through it all, he still manages to hold out some hope that justice will ultimately prevail. If not for him, maybe for other people. Performances like this remind you of what an intuitive actor Jamie Foxx can be when paired with the right material. 

I guess if this review has made nothing else clear, it's that "Just Mercy" is a pretty good movie despite being blatant Oscar bait. It has the big moments designed to wring emotion out of Academy voters. MacMillian's son is intimidated into not testifying in court. Later, after the first attempt to overturn his father's conviction is brutally ignored, the son stands up. He loses control of his emotions and is eventually tackled to the ground by white security officers. Shortly afterwards, MacMillian refuses to return to his jail cell and is similarly attacked by white prison guards. The music soars and the white guilt flows. This scene stands in contrast to "Just Mercy's" best moments, which are more subtle. Such as when MacMillian calms a panicked stricken Herbert Richardson by having him imagine a peaceful forest. Or the cell block singing together in an impromptu song. These scenes most clearly illustrate how the film's characters keep their humanity in a seemingly hopeless situation. 

Jordan and Foxx are not the only Marvel actors to appear in this one. Brie Larson plays Eva Ansly, Stevenson's main partner in setting up the Equal Justice Initiative. Larson presumably took the part to work again with Cretton, as it's a pretty small role for a star as big as her. Still, she taps into that gritty sarcasm that made her "Short Term 12" character so likable. Eva is a single mom and the way she protects her son, even in the face of violent intimidation, makes for a number of touching and funny scenes. The supporting cast also features an expertly squirrelly Tim Blake Nelson as the prime witness, O'Shea Jackson Jr. as a softly funny fellow inmate, and an ideally condescending Rafe Spall as the local prosecutor.

Most of Destin Daniel Cretton's documentary and indie movie roots were smoothed off by the time he directed "The Glass Castle." This is also mostly true of "Just Mercy," a film that looks very smooth and has a lot of warm colors in it. However, briefly, you can still catch a glimpse of the director's origins. Upon arriving at the prison, there's a series of first-person interviews with death row inmates that feels like something out of a documentary. Later, an early morning scene of Stevenson going for a run recalls the handheld, shaky-cam techniques the director displayed in his earlier pictures. It's nice to see this stuff still floating around inside the director's style, I suppose.

Another less notable but nevertheless interesting thing about "Just Mercy" is the amount of effort taken to make the actors in the movie actually look like their real-life counterparts. Usually, it's really distracting at the end of the Oscar bait movies, when they show pictures of the real people and it becomes clear how little they resemble the actors. And, yeah, Michael B. Jordan is way more handsome than the unassuming real life Bryan Stevenson. Yet Jamie Foxx is really made to look quite a lot like Walter MacMillian, the real man's hair and distinctive facial structure really grafted into the world face movie star. This even more true if Tim Blake Nelson, whose make-up makes him almost an uncanny lookalike of the real world Ralph Myers. The make-up artist really earned their keep on this one.

Despite the obvious ambitions "Just Mercy" had for itself, it would be a no-show come Oscar season. The movie received a number of notable awards and nominations but a SAG nomination for Foxx is the closest it came to Oscar gold. But that's okay. "Just Mercy" is still a well-made and well-acted film that makes some powerful points, even if it can't totally overcome the shortcomings of this type of motion picture. Warner Brothers would even make the film free-to-stream during the racial upheaval of 2020, so perhaps someone realized the message here was actually more important than box office or awards. [Grade: B]

Destin Daniel Cretton had already gotten his Marvel superhero gig by the time "Just Mercy" came out. Clearly, that project has made him one of the hottest up-and-comers in Hollywood right now. He already has a prestigious follow-up planned after the comic book adventure: A television mini-series about Japanese-American soldiers in World War II. While it remains to be seen if Cretton and "Shang-Chi" will open the doors for more Asian-American filmmakers, I suspect it will.

As for my experience tracking another director I was previously unfamiliar with... Cretton is an interesting guy. I didn't love any of his movies and his recent slide towards Oscar bait blandness is a bit disappointing. Yet I came out of this Report Card liking the filmmaker more than expected. His talent and, more than anything, an underlying wholesome spirit – a call for more compassion and empathy – seems to motivate him. That's a nice thing to see in the film industry. I wish him luck and I'm looking forward to "Shang-Chi."