The Burial 2023

The-Burial-2023
The Burial 2023

It’s easy to forget, given that it averages out to hundreds of films a year, that sometimes the simplest pleasure really comes from simple comfort food. Willie E. Gary, a personal injury lawyer played by Jamie Foxx, is a flashy character that works as Willie grabs a defense for Jerry O’Keefe. “The Burial“ is set in Mississippi and Jerry is a thoroughly outmatched persona over the multi billion dollar enterprise Gary is working for. This is how conflict is established for Maggie Betts’ movie, a 90s era courtroom drama infused with extreme comedy. 

Ripped from the true story pound for pound the movie has a lot of weird bits ranging from thinly developed characters, an almost silly rivalry, and a bizarrely mundane ending. And the story Betts tells is heartwarming, almost moving, the way it shows how we can become friends with unlikely partners. The movie dramatically begins when a broke Jerry a multi funeral homes and burial insurance business owner, goes to Vancouver with his lawyer, Mike Allred. Built up in a passionate manner by Alan Ruck, the movie starts with Jerry attempting to sell three funeral homes to owner and CEO of a dugout company, Ray Loewen. Unfortunately after a deal was established aboard a yacht, the $4 billion dollar company, hasn’t bothered to put pen to paper.

Hal (Mamadou Kathie), a new family associate and fresh out of law school, is the only one with doubts. He believes Loewen is simply biding her time hoping the quiet American loses his business so that the funeral home chain goes bankrupt. Subsequently, Hal persuades Jeremiah to not only file the lawsuit but to launch it from the predominantly black area of Hinds Country. Will E. Gary enters the scene here.  

Films like ‘Green Book’, ‘The Help’, and even ‘The Blind Side’ are all cut from the same cloth, they have mixed race ‘We Must Overcome’ themes but try and tackle deep seated racial problems within trivial happy endings where the white protagonist gains redemption. However, The Burial does not attempt to erase microaggression: racism and inequality within the span of 126 minutes, and, The Burial is not solely focused on the need to cure Jeremiah’s fragile guilt. The highlight reel of 2023 for Foxx is seeing Tyrone die, but there are better performances where he played the true protagonist of the series. 

The only completely outlined character is Willie, who tries hard to earn respect and achieve financial success.

Jeremiah is for the most part functional; aside from his business and big family (he has 13 children) and his wife (Pamela Reed), very little else is revealed to us besides his character type, a reticent one. We don’t even see his children. The same goes for Willie’s wife, Gloria (Amanda Warren) and Jeremiah’s lawyers, Hal and Mike. The same can be said about Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett), a star attorney Loewen brings on when he sees he has to have Black lawyers to be effective in a Black county. Mame and Willie start off as frenemies there are friendly, tense conversations between them that hover on the edge of unnerving, but give way to masterful off-the-cuff techniques in the courtroom and clever actorly choices by Smollett as his character is forced to struggle with how to best represent a loathsome white male. 

“The Burial” doesn’t necessarily focus on race, however it can certainly be felt in the atmosphere and is set against the backdrop of the O.J. Simpson trial (Willie often fantasizes about having to take on Johnnie Cochran). The mind boggling racial cruelty of the South is on full display: a calm Mamadou as Hal suggest microaggressions, while the National Baptist Convention adds more hurt, anger, and ache to the film.

In the movie “The Burial,” there is a distinct brand of African American humor that emerges from the storyline. Willie is, without a doubt, a stand up comic’s one off. He is stylishly inept and mockingly self deprecating. Foxx does a great job of balancing all of these intricacies as he brings the character to life and manages to steer clear of making him too silly or absurd. He also seems to enjoy Willie’s speech patterns, which are quite remarkable and rhythmical. Willie’s talented complete with an artistic twist: Foxx and Camp’s battle in the film right after the climax is a beautiful spectacle that illuminates the actor’s layered meaning. In addition, Doug Wright and Betts’ costumes and script together with Mirren Gordon Crozier’s rich costumes create additional visual hilarity, such as Willie and Willie’s wife in velvet tracksuits on the TV show ‘Lifestyles of the rich and famous’ Or the over the top lines that Willie’s clothes have. 

It cords from the rest of the expected David Vs Goliath Foxx’s Vs. Goliath’s heart and soul and while the proceedings within the court look a tabloids, are staged in a rather tedious manner. In the same stroke manage to lack tension and seriousness. With regards to this, he elevate the burial from the mere common anatomy all comedy seems to have to an ingenious work that stirs even after multiple viewings.

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