Don't sleep on or underestimate 'The Burial'
Amazon
Usually if a topical movie is a crowd pleaser, it doesn’t hit. Usually if something can be described as “sobering,” it’s not supposed to be entertaining and isn’t. So “The Burial” is something extremely rare: a delightful, highly recommendable watch that also happens to be wise and troubling about large, complicated, important issues.
In easily his best role since “Ray,” Jamie Foxx is fantastic as Willie Gary, a hotshot Florida lawyer recruited to take over the case for Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones, murmuring with purpose and vitality). O’Keefe owns eight funeral homes in southern Mississippi but won’t for long if the allegedly shady deal with a massive corporation (run by an appealingly against-type Bill Camp) drags on indefinitely. That means nudging aside Jeremiah’s longtime lawyer and close friend Mike Allred (Alan Ruck) and validating the efforts of Hal Dockins (a terrific Mamoudou Athie), the young lawyer responsible for bringing on Willie, who is Black, to try this case in a largely Black community in front of a Black judge and mostly Black jury.
Set in 1995 and inspired by a true story, “The Burial” will scratch the itch of anyone who misses the courtroom movies of the ‘90s or just the ability to watch two actors crushing it together. (Feel free to release hours upon hours of Foxx and Jones shooting bull; I will watch it.) There will be moments when you almost can’t believe how much fun you’re having, and wonder if this is based on a John Grisham book. (It’s not.)
Then again, directed and co-written by Maggie Betts, the movie is at times almost too eager to please, taking you out of a very compelling story for the sake of forced beats. And numerous instances of otherwise extremely skilled lawyers completely overlooking trial prep just make no sense.
But “The Burial” is far more canny about its ability to draw out its ideas, even identifying in court that this is not a case about race and then, eventually, showing all the hidden ways in which race plays an enormous factor. This is a story about systemic racist microaggressions crossing state and international lines, from the past into the present and future, and please feel free to remind me about all the other examples of movies this engaging that can end with such force about the devastating legacy of ongoing prejudice in America and beyond.
If “The Burial” is built on a familiar foundation of the little guy taking on the well-financed giant, it’s also an examination of tolerance and fairness as the underdog, and powerful bigotry as the frontrunner. Who do you think is going to win that battle? Which side are you on?
B+
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