10-12-2023 1:46am

"The Burial" Film Review

Anita Johnson-Brown Editor

After catching a seat in the screening room and viewing numerous films this year, I have come to appreciate the luxury of watching movies and indulging in the popcorn that stirs my brain and helps me write reviews that will guide you to the box office or your living room couch, assuming you have commentary. Films seem to be a popular topic of conversation, opening doors to new friendships and more.

Let's review Director Maggie Betts’ “The Burial,” a '90s stirring courtroom drama with comedic bits to lighten the seriousness of the situation. The film features dazzling personal injury lawyer Willie E. Gary, played by Jamie Foxx, who heads to Mississippi to defend the mild-tempered Jeremiah O’Keefe, played by Tommy Lee Jones, against a multi-billion dollar corporation.

Despite its flaws, Betts’ crowd-pleasing story of unlikely allies turned buddies is undeniably amusing. It dramatically begins a few months prior, when a financially challenged Jeremiah—an owner of several funeral homes and a burial insurance company—ventures with his longtime lawyer Mike Allred (Alan Ruck) to Vancouver, BC, to sell three funeral homes to CEO Ray Loewen (Bill Camp). A deal was struck on Loewen’s yacht, but four months have passed, and Loewen hasn’t signed the contract. Only the young Hal (Mamoudou Athie), a newly minted attorney and family friend, is suspicious: He thinks Loewen is waiting out Jeremiah, hoping the taciturn American’s business crashes, leaving the entire funeral home chain buyable for pennies on the dollar. Hal convinces Jeremiah not only to sue but to do so in the predominantly Black Hinds County. Here enters Willie E. Gary.

“The Burial” is not like most “We Must Overcome racism” films such as“The Help,” it doesn’t believe it can solve microaggressions, inequality, and racism in its 126-minute runtime. It’s also not affixed to healing Jeremiah of some guilty conscience. Foxx as Willie is the actual lead in one of his best, most vibrant, and funny performances in recent memory.

The only fully sketched character is Willie, who wants to be taken seriously (and make good money). Jeremiah is mostly functional; apart from his business and large family (he has 13 children) and his wife (Pamela Reed), we don’t learn much about him beyond his reserved personality (a quiet verve Jones can play in his sleep and always very well). We don’t even see his kids. The same can be said about Willie’s wife, Gloria (Amanda Warren), and Jeremiah’s lawyers, Hal and Mike. A similar observation follows Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett), a distinguished attorney Loewen hires when he realizes he needs Black attorneys to win in a Black county (we never really revisit the sketchiness of Hal reaching out to Willie, unbeknownst him, under the guise of the same tactic). Mame and Willie become friendly rivals—there’s awkward, charged dialogue between them that reads on the borderline of skeevy—leading to sharp tactics in the courtroom and sharp actorly decisions by Smollett as her character navigates representing a wretched white man.

“The Burial” is not really about ethnicity, but ethnicity is certainly all around it, and it takes place in the shadow of the O.J. Simpson trial (Willie often dreams of facing Johnnie Cochran). The terrible racial history of the South is prominently featured: a measured Mamoudou as Hal faces microaggressions, while the National Baptist Convention becomes the key to the case and adds more heart, frustration, and ache to the film.

“The Burial” also relishes in culturally specific Black humor. Willie is an inherently hilarious character: gaudy, in over his head, and self-effacing. Foxx plays all those components wonderfully without diminishing Willie to buffoonish levels. He also takes pleasure in Willie's rhythmic, melodiously signifying speech (the showdown between Foxx and Camp at the film’s climax is a tremendous instance of the actor’s play with layered meaning). Doug Wright and Betts’ comedically attuned screenplay and costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier’s rich costumes combine to craft further sight gags, from Willie and his wife appearing on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” in velvet leisurewear to the lines of Willie’s extravagant suits.

Despite the overly familiar visual patterns of the courtroom scenes, Foxx takes the stage as a curtain-raiser, through this prototypical man against a giant is a box office great. He adds tension, frivolity, and rigor, elevating "The Burial" from its common bones to a stirring, distinctive comedy to a favorite film to watch over and over again.

-By Anita Johnson-Brown