《正义的慈悲》

A biopic that views one American’s long career of fighting injustice* through the lens of an early victory he won in Alabama, Destin Daniel Cretton’s “Just Mercy” stars Michael B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson, founder of that state’s Equal Justice Initiative.

Having spent three decades overturning the convictions* of the wrongly imprisoned and defending anyone on death row*, Stevenson has been at the front of a righteous fight.

Jamie Foxx plays small-town entrepreneur Walter McMillian. He’s arrested on the drive home by cops who are longing for an excuse to shoot him on the spot. McMillian is accused of the long-unsolved murder of a local white girl and, in a parody* of justice, he’s quickly sentenced to death — despite there being no physical evidence and many witnesses (all black, unfortunately) backing up his alibi*.

Stevenson, a Harvard law student, is working as an intern in Georgia, where he shares a moment with a death-row inmate whose background is similar to his own. He finishes school and, over the protests of his fearful mother, moves south to defend death-row inmates free of charge.

In Alabama, Stevenson quickly learns how resistant the white establishment is to those who sympathize with felons*. He is stalked by men in police cruisers, kicked out of the office he has rented and even strip-searched when he first visits new clients in prison.

A local who has signed on as his paralegal*, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson), lets her boss move into and work out of her home, sharing work space with her son’s toys. But as their work raises eyebrows in town, the situation becomes difficult. When the phone rings at night, a racist is on the line issuing death threats.

Of all the men whose cases Stevenson takes up, McMillian’s a holdout* — sure that fighting his conviction is pointless and that this young lawyer will be no better than the last, who disappeared as soon as the family’s money ran out. But when Stevenson arranges a meeting with his wife (Karan Kendrick) and supporters, his seriousness is impossible to deny. McMillian agrees to work with him, setting the film on its largely familiar route through shocking evidence of malfeasance*, difficult legal maneuvers and final triumph in a courtroom bathed in sunlight.(SD-Agencies)