You can’t beat a well-mounted underdog saga … particularly one that boasts veteran scene-stealers such as Tommy Lee Jones and Jamie Foxx, and is based on actual events.
In this case, rather unusual actual events.
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| When their case takes an unexpected turn for the worst, Jeremiah O'Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones, left) wonders if he did the right thing, even with shrewd attorney Willie Gary (Jamie Foxx) at his side. |
But the approach of the 21st century found O’Keefe in financial difficulty for reasons beyond his control. In an effort to raise funds, he agreed to sell three of his funeral homes to Canadian businessman Ray Loewen, who headed a consortium that owned an increasingly large number of Canadian and American funeral parlors.
Loewen’s preferred tactic: He’d purchase available funeral homes in a given region, undercut smaller competitors until they went out of business, and then scoop up their operations at fire sale prices.
In O’Keefe’s case, Loewen simply stalled on signing and honoring their contract, waiting for the Biloxi businessman to go bankrupt. O’Keefe, justifiably outraged, got a lawyer.
But not just any lawyer…
What subsequently went down has become a thoroughly engaging legal duel in the capable hands of director Maggie Betts, who also co-wrote the script with Doug Wright, based on journalist Jonathan Harr’s equally absorbing October 1999 New Yorker article. But this isn’t merely a depiction of courtroom theatrics; Betts and Wright spend the lengthy first act introducing and developing the primary players, all well portrayed, so that we sympathize with everybody.
Except for Loewen. Bill Camp makes him an arrogant, unapologetic swine: an amoral skunk we want brought to his knees. Camp is the ideal villain.
On the surface, Jones’ O’Keefe is an amiable fellow: a doting husband and father of 13 children (!), and grandfather to 43. (We glance in awe at his wife, Annette, played with similar devotion by Pamela Reed.) But Jones’ bearing and expression also display the steel of a long-successful businessman, decorated World War II fighter ace, and former two-term mayor of Biloxi. This isn’t a man to take lightly.
And, let it be said, Jones is a longtime master of the cut-them-dead withering gaze.
O’Keefe also is shrewd. Knowing that the trial will take place in Mississippi’s Black-majority Hinds County, he wants a Black lawyer. He already has taken on newly minted young attorney Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie), who encourages them to travel to a Florida courtroom, where they can watch high-profile “celebrity” attorney Willie Gary (Foxx) in action.
He's quite something: confident, clever, spontaneously humorous.
Foxx plays Gary in flamboyant, sharply dressed, full-blown Johnnie Cochran mode: more evangelical preacher than simple attorney (an unerring representation of the actual Gary). Foxx’s theatrical flourishes in behavior and speech are beyond charismatic; every declaration is a masterpiece of vocal inflection and carefully chosen words.
But contract law isn’t Gary’s thing; his enormously successful career has been built on high-profile personal injury cases that reap fat financial verdicts. Dockins cleverly points out that their case has the potential for a groundbreaking victory, then adds that principle is at stake: This is about a good ol’ boy being screwed by a wealthy foreigner.
That hits home. As the son of migrant sharecroppers, who now lives in a coastal mansion and owns a private 737 dubbed “Wings of Justice,” Gary perceives the key truth: Black or white, he and O’Keefe are both “sons of the South” … and therefore not to be messed with.
The richest element of Betts and Wright’s script is this cheerful acknowledgment of the “race card.” Gary knows that he has been hired because he’s a high-profile Black attorney, and O’Keefe wants him for the same reason, knowing they’ll likely face a primarily Black jury. Everybody on Gary’s team is Black, and they also know how to exploit that situation.
Not quite everybody is comfortable with this. O’Keefe’s good friend and long-time attorney, Mike Allred (Alan Ruck), lacks his buddy’s color-blindness. Allred’s stammering awkwardness in Gary’s presence, trying mightily to overcome inborn bias with professional comportment, is priceless.
“I suppose I am a little prejudiced,” Allred reluctantly admits, Ruck squirming hilariously, when Gary point-blank asks how he feels about “workin’ with Black folks.”
(This actually occurred. “I am prejudiced,” Allred confessed to Gary, shortly after they met, “but I’m trying to work on it.” Gary’s reply: “That’s a very good thing to be working on, Mike.”)
Loewen, no dummy, responds by hiring hotshot Black female attorney Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett) as his lead attorney. Smollett plays her as outwardly unassuming — likely a convivial conversationalist, during a cocktail party — but well-prepared and utterly ferocious in the courtroom, with go-for-the-jugular instincts.
We anticipate the latter from the way Downes is introduced, Smollett crisply and coolly striding from one side of cinematographer Maryse Alberti’s framed shot to the other.
We relish the upcoming dance between Foxx and Smollett.
(This is the saga’s one key departure from historical accuracy. Loewen’s lead Black trial lawyer was Richard Sinkfield … but it makes a better movie if this character is female.)
Although not as captivating as Jones, Foxx or Smollett, Athie’s Dockins is an equally important participant. Athie plays him quiet, easily overlooked and somewhat taken for granted … and yet the extremely keen Dockins has the curiosity and investigative meticulousness of a born researcher. Which will prove important.
Lance E. Nichols is appropriately watchful and strict as the presiding judge, and Amanda Warren is warm and supportive as Gary’s wife, Gloria.
Thanks to its richly nuanced characters and ripped-from-the-headlines storyline, this is can’t-miss cinema. It’d make a great double bill with Dumb Money.
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