“Just Mercy” is a film about another true story that could never work if it was a work of fiction, because nobody would believe that in this country, the legal system could be as bad as it was in Alabama in 1987. This story would be more believable in a 3rd world country, or in this country long before any standard of legal justice or common sense rules were established.

This unbelievable true story involves a corrupt Sheriff and Prosecutor who used the death penalty to force a witness to lie on the stand to convict Walter McMillian, played by Jamie Foxx. They sent McMillan to death row, even before his trial began! This all happened in the United States, in the year 1987. Without the help of a Harvard educated lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, played by Micheal B. Jordan, McMillan and many other innocent prisoners would have put to death in the electric chair. At the end of this movie, it was stated that the error rate for death row prisoners in this country who are innocent and killed is an incredible 1 out of 9.  Throughout this horrendous real life story, the callousness of the Prosecutor and Sheriff was hard to watch. All they cared about was killing an innocent man to protect their reputations and careers, despite the huge holes with all the evidence uncovered during the trial and despite the fact that an innocent man was about to be killed in an electric chair.

The acting throughout this movie is outstanding, including Brie Larson, who plays the legal aid to Stevenson, Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillan and Micheal B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson. This film is a must see for everyone, if for no other reason than to experience the overwhelming disbelief that the events of this story could ever have happened in this country, at any time. McMillan spent 6 years on death row even though never in his life was he in the town where the murder of a young white woman happened. So many other poor people, are thrown into jail just because they are poor and black and the public defenders are more interested in expediency than defending anyone who might in fact be innocent. Even after overwhelming evidence was uncovered to free McMillan, a corrupt judge decided to keep him on death row, and for me this was one of the most outrageous events in this story. During one of the last trials in this film, Stevenson said that justice in this country must exist for all of us, not just the rich, the most important message in this great movie.

Bryan Stevenson is a great lawyer and human being, who has dedicated his entire career to helping the poor escape the horrendous legal injustice that exists in this country. His organization “The Equal Justice Initiative” is a non profit organization that helps falsely convicted and condemned poor people who don’t have the means to defend themselves.  His organization has saved 140 innocent people from being put to death, while freeing many more innocent people from prison. Stevenson’s has also written a book about his legal career, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.

Surprisingly this movie has only received ratings that are only in the low 80% range. My rating is a solid 95% for the story, the acting and the importance of this movie. I highly recommend Just Mercy as one of the best pictures about the legal system in this country that I have ever seen.

The movie “1917”, directed by Sam Mendes, is inspired by true stories that his grandfather told him about World War 1. During World War 1, Lance Corporal Alfred H. Mendes was a message runner and my first thought at the beginning of this film was; if 1600 lives were at stake to prevent an attack on a German position, then why did a General only send two men? Considering 1600 lives, I would expect that a General would send an entire platoon to prevent an attack that would have been a trap for 1600 British soldiers.

1917 is unlike most other war movies that have been made, because there is very little actual war action and much more about the trek of two solders trying to deliver an important message to a Major to prevent a German Trap. This trap was a German plan that was months in the making and only due to a lucky aerial photo, the greatly reinforced German position was uncovered. As these two young men walk through horrendous war zones, it reminds the viewer that war is about much more than two armies trying to kill the other side. War is about hundreds and thousands of dead bodies, and in the case of World War 1, huge trenches surrounded by sand bags, mud, trench foot, dead horses, land minds, bombs exploding, bullets flying and the realization that your life could end at any time,  just by walking around a war zone. I though that the most impressive thing about this movie, were the huge and lengthy trenches that were dug, and the thousands of sand bags that lined all of the walls.

I did expect more here, and in a way something more substantial in terms of a war movie that would include more war action.  However, I mostly agree with the 85%

What will make many people want to miss “Parasite” is the fact that it was produced in South Korea and it has subtitles. This is the reason why I waited so long to see this movie after it was released over a month ago. Mainly due to the critics ratings, as high as 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, have eventually made seeing this foreign film mandatory.

The dominant idea behind Parasite is about being rich and being poor. Does being extremely rich make you evil, or does being extremely poor make you evil, because of your desperation to no longer be poor? The story of Parasite is about a family who is so poor, the only way they can make any income is by assembling of all things, pizza boxes for a local delivery service. The four of them live in a hellish ground floor apartment in one of the poorest sections of South Korea, within a grim reality that is at times, hard to watch. Through a series of strange events, the teenage son in this family gets a job with a rich family tutoring their teenage daughter. Following a series of manipulations, lies and evil actions that drive out the the maid and driver the rich family employ; this grifter family slowly infiltrates their way into this rich family taking over all the jobs by driving out their other employees.

The theme of this entire story is the contrast between rich people and poor people and the way rich people look down upon people who have nothing; and the way poor people are so envious of the privileged lives of the rich. There are at least 4 incidents in this story, where the rich family complain about the smell of the people they have hired, and we find out later during a flood about the poor sewage in the poor section where they live. The resentment of the poor family, despite their criminal actions of lying their way into four jobs, eventually becomes unbearable and contributes to the dramatic ending.

The quality of the acting and the story of this film was strong enough to get used to the subtitles within the first 30 minutes and I though the ending was about as unexpected and insane as any ending I have seen in a long time.

I agree with the 99% rating for Parasite and I do recommend this movie.