OK folks, here it is: “The Burial” is sensational. It’s the most fun movie I’ve seen in the last 5 years. Make that 10 years. 5 stars. Go see it. It’s got belly laughs, constant chuckles, warm fuzzies, nary a dull moment, and you’ll leave the theater feeling better about humanity.
“The Burial” is based on a true story. It’s a classic David versus Goliath, about a small business owner going up against an industry giant, and corporate greed getting smacked upside the head by the door on the way out.
Story
Family man Jeremiah “Jerry” O’Keefe (Tommy Lee) is a mom-and-pop funeral home owner. The business has been in the O’Keefe family for generations, and Jerry, with his 13 kids and 23 grandkids, come hell or high water—intends to keep it that way.
A deal was struck on Loewen’s lavish yacht, but four months have gone by and Lowen hasn’t signed the contract yet. Jerry’s young, green, newly-minted-lawyer and family friend Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie) is suspicious: He thinks Canadian Loewen is waiting Jeremiah out, hoping that the long-faced, taciturn American Jerry’s business crashes, leaving the entire funeral home chain wide open for purchase, for pennies on the dollar. Hal convinces Jeremiah not only to sue but also to do so in Mississippi’s predominantly black Hinds County.
Jerry, on the further recommendation of Hal, retains Willie E. Gary (Foxx), a flamboyant, sharp-dressing, private-jet-owning personal injury lawyer with no contract law experience. Hal acknowledges that Willie E. doesn’t look too good on paper, but he’s taking the “Money Ball” approach—Gary’s got a 12-year winning streak in court, never lost a case. And it’ll be an all-black jury and judge. Willie Gary is black and Jerry’s longtime lawyer is not.
Willie and Jerry are an odd couple for sure, at first, but coming as he does from a large, poor Southern family, Gary immediately bonds with Jerry–who fathered 13 kids—and Jerry becomes the lawyer’s very first white client. They find common ground via their mutual faith, integrity, and desire to see justice served.
Race
“The Burial” isn’t about race, but race is everywhere to be seen, and it all takes place in the shadow of the O.J. Simpson trial, coming out of TVs in bars and restaurants. Gary daydreams of facing Johnnie Cochran someday. The dreadful racial history of the South is featured prominently, not as a guilt trip to America but more as a reverential tribute (since the movie is about funeral homes) to the fact that many open fields in the Deep South are, in fact, unmarked graveyards, with scores of slaves buried there.
“The Burial” is a bona fide crowd-pleaser, full of well-drawn characters, show-stopping monologues, abundant fun, laughs, and entertainment, but it goes above and beyond all that to lay bare the truth about yet another large, greedy, big-name corporation taking advantage of the disenfranchised and low-income communities.
It’s also a reminder that while the antebellum and Jim Crow South was indeed racist, America has long since overcome the first phase of the former Soviet Union’s Machiavellian “Long March Through the American Institutions” attempt to sow divide-and-conquer racial discord.
American black and white people have become an evermore integrated family since the 1960s, well-versed in each other’s cultures, and have come to enjoy, share, and assimilate, collectively, our cultural differences.
However, communism’s not dead—far from it. Communism has had to counter and issue in a next phase by spreading woke-ist declarations that whites are prejudiced because they’re white, and using that nonsensical statement to attempt to stir up black-on-white prejudice. Communism’s alive and well in America; it’s just reversed directions. But that’s a treatise for another article.
So anyway. Throughout is Foxx’s heart, soul, art, and acting craft catapulting “The Burial” from what could have been run-of-the-mill movie fare to a stirring, distinctive comedy with a high re-watch value.
The real Willie E. Gary, by the way, is still at it, giving himself the title of “Giant Killer” and taking on corporations like Disney—and winning.
