The Burial
2023
**½
Director: Maggie Betts
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones, Jurnee Smollett, Alan Ruck, Mamoudou Athie, Pamela Reed, Bill Camp, Amanda Warren, Dorian Missick, Lance E. Nichols, Billy Slaughter
When his family legacy is in jeopardy, an amiable Mississippi funeral home owner sues a powerful corporation for contractual breach and decides to hire a flashy personal injury lawyer to try his case. Although this drama was inspired by true events documented in Jonathan Harr's 1999 New Yorker article, the screenplay by Doug Wright and Maggie Betts turns the source material into an overlong and incredibly formulaic court procedural with (literally and figuratively) black and white characters, and dramatic twists at predictable intervals.
