Based on a true story, this tale of flamboyant lawyer taking on the mega corporation on behalf of the small businessman is entertaining on many dimentions. Jamie Foxx plays a selfmade courtroom powerhouse who loves to win. But he does it by sliding into the seam in society where there is empathetic recompense waiting for a subpopulation who has been sectioned away from the better parts of life in this country.
Granted his client in this tale is a white small town businessman in his later years of life. But the jury, who ultimately decides the outcomes in trials, has a more cohesive background. You could say Foxx is a type of entrepreneur. He sees in groups. There are the large corporations who ‘got the bank.’ These folks have no issues with taking their wares to the high poverty areas where they depend on a general lack of poor support infrastucture to corner the market. The consumers are not educated in ways to hold a business to its advertizing; they don’t have the means to drive across the county looking for better deals; they are unable or uwilling to follow up on a consumer complaint.
They are the perfect consumer group to mess with, and as the lawsuit shows, they are taken for a ride.
But is it a misscarriage of justice that the award goes to the one plaintiff? Out of a group wronged, should one individual benefit? No- that is just how it works. It only takes one individual in a group to save a drowning child. Yet that one individual would do it for anyone. When a discovery is made, one individual gets credit eventhough many were working toward the same goal. But eveyone benefits from the invention. And everyone in the disadvataged community benefits when huge claims are made against corporations for predatory activities. It’s the voice of it that matters.
I must say, though, that my favorite scene in the courtroom where Jurnee Smollett cries out: “The hypocrasy! The hypocracy!” This seems to be the director Maggie Betts talking directly to the audience.
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