This extremely slick entertainment stacks the deck in favor of "the little guy" against a billionaire businessman. It takes obvious liberties with the trial, depicts the billionaire businessman as saying things no successful businessman would actually say, and lets us hear one attorney's summation but does not allow us to hear that of his rival. Even on the movie's own terms, it wants us to celebrate what is clearly a travesty of justice.
The legal dispute, as presented in the film, is a relatively minor one: whether a Canadian firm delayed several months in delivering a promised contract. The movie makes clear that the Tommy Lee Jones character is in violation of Mississippi's business code, that he's facing bankruptcy, and that his lawsuit against a Canadian billionaire negotiating to buy three of his funeral homes is, for him, a desperate hail-Mary gesture. The movie also makes clear that his attorney, the Jamie Foxx character, goes judge-shopping for a black district with a black judge, and then proceeds to win his case -- along with a ridiculously large punitive amount -- by appealing to the black jury's resentment toward a white entrepreneur, especially the kind who owns a $25 million yacht.
Although these extraneous matters have nothing to do with the case -- which, we understand from the start, is a technical contract dispute -- we see that the jury is swayed by them and that it awards the Jones character half a billion dollars (later somewhat reduced) because it feels the Canadian has been charging too much for funerals. Here's the chance to stick it to a wealthy white guy.
We often read these days about the absurdly high judgments that irresponsible juries, swayed by emotion, render against perfectly legitimate businesses in defiance of a case's legal merits. This movie depicts exactly that sort of abuse -- and expects us to applaud it.
The legal dispute, as presented in the film, is a relatively minor one: whether a Canadian firm delayed several months in delivering a promised contract. The movie makes clear that the Tommy Lee Jones character is in violation of Mississippi's business code, that he's facing bankruptcy, and that his lawsuit against a Canadian billionaire negotiating to buy three of his funeral homes is, for him, a desperate hail-Mary gesture. The movie also makes clear that his attorney, the Jamie Foxx character, goes judge-shopping for a black district with a black judge, and then proceeds to win his case -- along with a ridiculously large punitive amount -- by appealing to the black jury's resentment toward a white entrepreneur, especially the kind who owns a $25 million yacht.
Although these extraneous matters have nothing to do with the case -- which, we understand from the start, is a technical contract dispute -- we see that the jury is swayed by them and that it awards the Jones character half a billion dollars (later somewhat reduced) because it feels the Canadian has been charging too much for funerals. Here's the chance to stick it to a wealthy white guy.
We often read these days about the absurdly high judgments that irresponsible juries, swayed by emotion, render against perfectly legitimate businesses in defiance of a case's legal merits. This movie depicts exactly that sort of abuse -- and expects us to applaud it.