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Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx tackled racial injustice and captured the raw emotions of a condemned man in his last moments before execution in the film “Just Mercy,” which premiered in theaters Christmas Day. 

“Just Mercy” follows the true story of recent Harvard Law School graduate Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) who moves to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned, or those not afforded proper representation and placed on death row. 

One of Stevenson’s first cases is that of African American logger Walter McMillian (Foxx), who was sentenced to die in 1987 for the murder of an 18-year-old white woman, despite the evidence proving his innocence. Stevenson encounters racism in the following years, along with legal and political maneuverings as he tirelessly fights for McMillian’s life. 

However, McMillian’s case is not the whole picture; rather, it is a “totemic example of how a socioeconomic system forged within the furnace of slavery still bears the shackles of its past,” according to The Guardian’s Mark Kermode. 

The African American community of the South was subject to harassment and injustice from the U.S. criminal justice system, as Stevenson himself endured a humiliating strip search during his visit to death row. Despite being a lawyer, the officers only saw the color of his skin. 

Stevenson is not just challenging a single conviction, but also the “deep legacies of slavery and Jim Crow,” said A.O. Scott of The New York Times.

Despite Stevenson being a man of heroic decency, he is not always dramatically interesting. Much of his character is showcased through glorified speeches and music-heavy moments, leaving his inner life largely unexplored.

Directors tend to dehumanize criminals in their films, but Destin Daniel Cretton gives the inmates on death row the humanity they deserve. Audiences get a glimpse into their lives as they deal with the daily struggle of accepting their execution, whether they are at fault for the crime or wrongfully accused. 

One inmate left a particularly deep impression. Vietnam veteran Herbert Richardson, portrayed by Rob Morgan, does not deny his guilt, and the mixture of remorse, terror and the simple grief he feels as he contemplates his fate is heartbreaking. 

“You feel not only his sense of guilt, but the demons that infected his brain during combat,” said Odie Henderson for Rogerebert.com. 

In Richardson’s last scene he is facing his fate at the electric chair, and the horrific scene is so well-acted that it leaves the audience haunted. “It’s the only time the viewer is forced to be uncomfortably conflicted, to think about the complicated nature of injustice,” Henderson said. 

Richardson’s fellow inmates, however, do not see him as the man who killed an innocent woman, rather a man who was deprived of the support and mental health resources he needed.

The interactions between Richardson, McMillian and fellow inmate Anthony Ray Hinton (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) are insightful, showing how those waiting to die try to ease each other’s pain. They continually support one another until their last breaths with the clanging of cups on the cell bars. 

 “‘Just Mercy’ keeps its emotions on a low simmer, its absorbing, tautly designed drama finally coming to a climax that is satisfying on one level, and absolutely shattering on another,” said Washington Post movie critic Ann Hornaday. “‘[Just Mercy]’ is masterfully constructed to keep us inside a story that otherwise would be too brutal to bear.”