Just Mercy Reviews
February 11, 2021
Foxx does his best work in a decade. For the charismatic Jordan, who puts in a tone-setting nuanced turn here, Just Mercy arrives between Creed II and Tom Clancy's Without Remorse. Let's hope he sticks with the "one for them, one for me" formula.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
February 11, 2021
"Just Mercy" is solid, meat-and-potatoes docudrama filmmaking, if you don't mind a first-rate story of systemic injustice undercut by second-rate dialogue.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
February 11, 2021
Unlike many movies "based on a true story," "Just Mercy" sticks close to the facts of the case - for the simple reason that the facts are drama enough.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
February 11, 2021
It's both rage-inducing and awe-inspiring; the courage conveyed by the protagonists is a balm on the sting of injustice.
March 19, 2020
It's competently made... Thought has been put into this production, and again, I'm completely a hundred percent on the side of everything it has to say. I just don't think it's a very good movie.
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| Original Score: 6.5/10
February 28, 2020
Just Mercy is a deeply moving film, a human story about injustice and justice and how intangible and ephemeral they both really are.
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| Original Score: 4/5
February 6, 2020
an earnest and important film about the still-festering sore of race in today's America - though when pitted against inveterate, sneering prejudice, its protagonist's one-note saintliness, however real, does not make for the most compelling drama
January 30, 2020
It's steady and clear-headed, safe in the knowledge that truth is the ultimate humaniser.
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| Original Score: 4/5
January 29, 2020
Just Mercy isn't interested in giving it a showy new spin. Instead the extraordinary, hope-inspiring true story is allowed to speak for itself, powered along by committed turns by Jordan and Brie Larson.
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| Original Score: 3/5
January 29, 2020
It's good acting at its finest in this preaching to the choir "right to life" drama that might have worked had the filmmakers chosen to show the audience a little mercy by not constantly talking down to them.
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| Original Score: 1/5
January 21, 2020
Jordan, however, is completely persuasive. The virtues possessed by Stevenson are all on the quiet side. His analytical flair is matched by his patience, his tenacity and his acuity.
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| Original Score: 4/5
January 21, 2020
Still, by the time you reach the end - and realise how closely the film-makers have stuck to the facts - you won't care. That the truth will out is entertainment enough.
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| Original Score: 4/5
January 18, 2020
Just Mercy isn't stylistically dazzling. The chronicle of racism is also familiar. But Cretton and his leads give the narrative an urgency and timeliness.
January 18, 2020
In parts stolid, but solid nevertheless, Just Mercy is timely and important.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
January 18, 2020
This is a powerful drama about an important ongoing issue.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
January 17, 2020
The film has this kind of slow burn quality, it has a very good ensemble cast.
January 17, 2020
[I]t's never less than engrossing. Even with the schmaltz.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
January 16, 2020
Jordan... has steel and energy in his part, and... Foxx... gives a beautifully modulated, unflashy and quietly moving performance, easily his best in at least a decade.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
January 15, 2020
The markers of the story are so familiar (venal law enforcement, leaned-on witnesses, the courtroom), it takes nerve to tell it this simply.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
January 14, 2020
The film's power lies in the brutality of its true story, and yet that narrative stays within fairly conventional bounds precisely because of Cretton's commitment to telling it.