A charming, light-weight court-room drama with civil rights flags pinned into its theme, this ‘Inspired by true events’ story of a super-successful Black lawyer helping a white funeral home owner save his family business
The Burial
Film: The Burial (Amazon Prime)
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones, Jurnee Smollett, Bill Camp, Mamoudou Athie, Alan Ruck, Pamela Reed
Director: Maggie Betts
Rating: 3/5
Runtime: 126 mins
A charming, light-weight court-room drama with civil rights flags pinned into its theme, this ‘Inspired by true events’ story of a super-successful Black lawyer helping a white funeral home owner save his family business from a Canada based corporate behemoth, works its way into exposing a complex web of race, power, and injustice. The claim here is that it’s based on a news article by Jonathan Harr that appeared in the November 1, 1999, edition of The New Yorker.
Jerry, aka the mild-mannered Jeremiah O’Keefe’s (Tommy Lee Jones) family business involves running a number of funeral homes in South Mississippi. In his efforts to become big, he ends up going into debt and feels guilty for having failed his long-standing wife, 13 children and many grandchildren. He finally agrees to sell 3 funeral homes for some much-needed capital inflow, to the giant Loewen funeral company, headed by flamboyant, filthy rich, show-off, CEO Ray Loewen(Bill Camp). Loewen tries to go underhand and appears to deliberately fail to fulfill his end of the bargain. So that leaves Jerry with little else to do but sue and to this end he hires an aggressive, flashy personal injury lawyer Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) known for winning all his cases. Jerry’s business associate and loyal longtime Lawyer friend Mike Allred (Alan Ruck) finds himself sidelined because of his milder demeanor and lack of killer instinct.
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The film is not exactly about race even though most of the principal characters are from different racial backgrounds. The case was fought in a predominantly Black neighbourhood county courthouse as part of the strategy to fall back on the Black man’s fervor to right historical injustices. This is not a trite feel-good story. “The Burial” doesn’t believe in resolving discriminatory inequities in life. Jeremiah is solely intent on teaching the Big Bad bully Loewen that even a small town David can fix the behemoth Goliath by using native smarts. Eventually, the drama magnifies into something bigger when the courtroom histrionics becomes more about taking down an entire corrupt industry.
Foxx as Willie, comes on board 15-20 minutes into the film and then goes on to command our attention throughout. Willie’s character is fleshed out well. This is definitely one of Foxx’s better performances - spirited, humourous, and edgy. Willie’s wife, Gloria (Amanda Warren), Jeremiah’s lawyers, Hal and Mike and Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett), a distinguished attorney hired by Loewen, flit through without much recompense.
Jeremiah is mostly sketchy. We don’t get to know him much, other than that he is a family man and from the revelation in court regarding his standing up to the Klu Klux Clan. So Jones serves himself well by being reserved and imparting dignity though his actions and words.
Director Maggie Betts’ “The Burial,” is pretty much old-fashioned in the manner in which the court-room drama plays out. The narrative, which lacks in meaty firepower and sparkling wordplay, works in some comedy before becoming sweet and fulfilling in its end game. This one may not pack a punch but has what it takes to make it endearing!
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