Just Mercy trailer finds Michael B. Jordan taking on the justice system

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Warner Bros. has released the first trailer for the biographical drama JUST MERCY, which recounts lawyer Bryan Stevenson’s (Michael B. Jordan) fight against the criminal justice system’s bias towards poor, minority communities in Alabama. The story centers on one of the first major cases for Stevenson, which was the defense of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), who was put on death row for a murder he did not commit.

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Based on the book "Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption" by Stevenson, the movie was co-written (alongside Andrew Lanham) and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (SHORT TERM 12, SHANG-CHI), with Brie Larson co-starring as Eva Ansley, a local advocate who joins Stevenson’s practice. The rest of the cast is fleshed out by Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Rafe Spall, and O’Shea Jackson Jr. The movie will have its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6 before hitting theaters in December. 

“It’s a system that preys on people of color, people who are poor, people who are uneducated,” Jordan said about the movie in a feature for Time. “When you leave this movie, I want you to question what you think is normal.”

Here’s the synopsis:

A powerful and thought-provoking true story, “Just Mercy” follows young lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) 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 (Larson).  One of his first, and most incendiary, cases is that of Walter McMillian (Foxx), 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 is in limited theaters on December 25 before going wide January 10, 2020.