Before she was Captain Marvel and he was announced as the director of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, actress Brie Larson and filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton made a low-budget indie called Short Term 12. It’s an excellent movie, with an impressive collection of before-they-were-famous talent (Rami Malek, Kaitlyn Dever, Lakeith Stanfield, Stephanie Beatriz), and the collaboration proved so successful that they made another movie together, The Glass Castle, and, as of this December, yet another. Based on Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, Just Mercy stars Michael B. Jordan as an attorney defending a man imprisoned for murder (Jamie Foxx), despite evidence to the contrary. Larson plays an Alabama-based advocate assisting Jordan.
Check out the trailer above. Here’s the official plot summary:
A powerful and thought-provoking true story, Just Mercy follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson and his history-making battle for justice. After graduating from Harvard, Bryan had his pick of lucrative jobs. Instead, he heads to Alabama to defend those wrongly condemned or who were not afforded proper representation, with the support of local advocate Eva Ansley. One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian, who, in 1987, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 18-year-old girl, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and the fact that the only testimony against him came from a criminal with a motive to lie. In the years that follow, Bryan becomes embroiled in a labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt and unabashed racism as he fights for Walter, and others like him, with the odds — and the system — stacked against them.
Just Mercy, which also stars Tim Blake Nelson, opens on December 25.
