Review: Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones shine in Amazon Prime’s courtroom drama ‘The Burial’

It’s hard to find two more beloved actors in Hollywood than Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones.

After it was announced that the two would be teaming up for a new courtroom drama from Amazon MGM Studios, moviegoers were excited for the film’s premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last month.

After a limited release in theaters last week to qualify for Oscar contention, “Burial” finally premieres on Amazon Prime Video this Friday. This is one of his best courtroom dramas in recent years.

Based on a true story based on the book by Jonathan Harris, the film follows undefeated personal injury attorney Willie E. Gailey as he helps funeral home owner Jeremiah Joseph O’Keefe sue large funeral home company Rowen Group. The story is set in 1995. A deeper story of race and power is exposed over a contract dispute.

Thirty years after winning an Oscar for The Fugitive (1993), Jones is one of the undisputed all-time greats. In “The Burial,” he shares the black-and-white irony of “Men in Black” (1997) and expresses his age as in “No Country for Old Men” (2007). Feels like “Lincoln” (2012), struggling with the law. His wife, played warmly by Pamela Reed (“Parks and Recreation”), communicates with each other with glances and smiles as they consider a reconciliation.

Meanwhile, Amanda Warren (The Leftovers) plays Foxx’s wife, Jolia, who tries to convince him not to speak in the third person. Foxx, who played the meek defendant in Just Mercy (2019), is extremely charismatic as Gary, a man from a poor family who has now become a flashy TV star in the mold of Johnnie Cochran. He is skeptical of Jerry’s white lawyer (Alan Ruck, Succession) and believes the case is not big enough, urging the team to cast a wider net.

The big fish is billionaire Raymond Loewen, who cruises on yachts like Triangle of Sorrow (2022) and stars in The Night of (2016) and The Queen’s Gambit (2020). Greatly played by the always great Bill Camp. . Jurnee Smollett, who played Eve’s Bayou (1997) and Lovecraft Country (2020), plays his defense attorney, who cross-examines Foxx fiercely on the witness stand, but he doesn’t know what’s going on in his heart. Then sympathize with the other person’s cause.

Dueling black lawyers share an understanding of institutional racism. As Fox and Jones look out over a southern field, powerful dialogue explains that it is an old slave cemetery, the type where wealthy whites were often buried atop unmarked black graves. . Here we see the double meaning of the title. That is, the “burial” of history where we tell ourselves false stories to make ourselves feel better, rather than facing the hard truths of the past.

Director Maggie Betts, whose directorial debut Novitia (2017) was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, made the film in New Orleans, depicting the rough-and-tumble community of the Fox sharecroppers. . She co-wrote the screenplay with Doug Wright, who won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award for his play I Am My Own Wife (2004).

Their courtroom climax is moving, but flawed enough that I wish I had actually watched the closing argument instead of cutting straight to the verdict. Imagine An Alabama Story (1962), The Verdict (1982), or Philadelphia (1993) without the final speeches of Gregory Peck, Paul Newman, and Denzel Washington. . The closing credits text deflates the balloon by revealing how future appeals could reduce the damages.

Either way, the movie gives us an overall sense of justice as the bad guys are reversed and the good guys not only win, but also donate their winnings to charity, and life-long friendships that transcend racial barriers. It will be built. Who would have thought that a legal piece about the worst funeral home would be so compelling?

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