Walter "Johnny D" McMillian (Jamie Foxx) is wrongly convicted for the murder of a white woman and sentenced to death. In 1989, new Harvard law graduate Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) arrives in the small Alabama county to fight for the disenfranchised on death row with help from local Eva Ansley (Brie Larson).

This is real true life sincere advocacy docudrama. Jamie Foxx is doing great. Michael B. Jordan is holding back for the most part to play a stoic character until a few big emotional moments. The story is terrific and it's well told. It hits the right emotional notes. It really only falters when the movie tries too hard and it becomes a little preachy. Sometimes, less is more and this movie is plenty good enough.

Movies about black injustice are nothing new. To Kill a Mockingbird is a famous example. Then there are those movies set in South Africa during the Apartheid era.

Just Mercy is about Bryan Stevenson (Michael B Jordan) a Harvard graduate who established the Equal Justice Initiative in Alabama in 1989.

One of the first cases he takes on is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx) who has been sent to death row for the murder of a white woman in 1986. McMillian claimed he was somewhere else at the time of the murder and was set up be some dicey testimony from a convicted offender.

The local sheriff seemed determined to convict McMillian and is not pleased when Stevenson comes snooping around some years later.

Just Mercy is a solid and ernest film about racial injustice in the south. The police are straight out of In the Heat of the Night. It was too formulaic.

Even though it is based on a true story and is well acted. I would had liked something that broke up the formula of these types of dramas where the police are racist rednecks. Maybe the sad truth is that you have to stick with a cliche when it is the truth.

... and wonders why this didn't get nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars - in a year where there are no rules, would seem appropriate for The Academy to give this another go, especially as Michael B. Jordan gives us a searing performance as a man intent on getting justice. An inspiration to us all and for always.