The Burial
It’s simple to forget that often the surest and sometimes best pleasure comes from simple comfort food when you see hundreds of movies a year. “The Burial,” directed by Maggie Betts, is a throwback ’90s inspirational courtroom drama pitched to extreme comedy. Flashy personal injury lawyer Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) arrives in Mississippi to defend the mild-mannered Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones) against a multi-billion dollar corporation, and it couldn’t be simpler or sweeter like a summer Southern breeze.
“The Burial” has a lot of wonky parts: thin characters; an oddly framed rivalry, an anti climactic ending. And yet Betts’ story of unlikely partners turned friends is undeniably entertaining. It begins dramatically a few months prior, when broke Jeremiah owner of several funeral homes and a burial insurance business 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 Lowen’s yacht, but four months have passed and Lowen 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 so hard that the entire funeral home chain becomes buyable for pennies on the dollar. Hal convinces Jeremiah not only to sue, but to do so in the predominantly Black Hinds County. Enter: Willie E. Gary.
Most mixed race “We Must Overcome” films (“Green Book,” “The Help,” “The Blind Side”) falter by trying fix all racial inequity in two hours while only truly redeeming/compensating credits-end white character But “The Burial” doesn’t believe it can solve microaggressions, inequality and racism in 126 minutes. Also not affixed to healing Jeremiah of some guilty conscience. No: Foxx as Willie is the actual lead in one of his best, most vibrant and funny performances in recent memory (though “They Cloned Tyrone” is a 2023 highlight for him, too).
In fact, aside from being functional (business; large family 13 kids with wife played by Pamela Reed, etc.), Jeremiah is barely sketched out as a character. We don’t learn 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 goes for Hal’s wife Gloria (Amanda Warren), Jeremiah’s lawyers Hal and Mike, or pretty much any character outside of Willie, 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 sketchiness of Hal reaching out to Willie under the same tactic unbeknownst him), etc. 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” isn’t really about race, but race 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 key to case double-timing more heart frustration/ache into film.
“The Burial” also enjoys culturally specific African American jokes. Willie is a naturally funny character showy, out of his depth, self-deprecating. Foxx fulfills all those aspects brilliantly while not making Willie into some kind of buffoon. He also delights in the rhythmically musical language of Willie (the scene between Foxx and Camp at the end of the movie is a great example of how much an actor can mean). Doug Wright and Betts’ script full of jokes and Mirren Gordon Crozier’s costumes which are themselves a joke contribute even more visual gags to it, from seeing Willie and his wife on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” in velvet tracksuits to looking at lines upon lines of fancy suits that he wears throughout.
What pulses through this formulaic underdog sports film is Foxx’s spirit. Even though the trial scenes become visually repetitive after awhile, Foxx brings anxiety, light-heartedness, and discipline, thus turning “The Burial” from being just another comedy drama into something much more powerful that will make you want to watch it again.
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