After seeing hundreds of films a year, it’s easy to forget that sometimes the surest and sometimes best pleasure comes from simple comfort food. Director Maggie Betts’ “The Burial,” a throwback '90s inspirational courtroom drama pitched to extreme comedy, comes as simple and sweet as a summer Southern breeze when flashy personal injury lawyer Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) arrives in Mississippi to defend the mild-mannered Jeremiah O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones) against a multi-billion dollar corporation.

“The Burial” has several wonky components, like thin characters, an oddly framed rivalry, and an anti-climactic ending. And yet, Betts’ crowd-pleasing story of unlikely partners turned friends is undeniably entertaining. It dramatically begins a few months prior, when a broke Jeremiah—an owner of several funeral homes and a burial insurance business—ventures with his longtime lawyer Mike Allred (Alan Ruck) to Vancouver, BC, to sell three funeral homes to CEO Ray Loewen (Bill Camp). A deal was struck on Lowen’s yacht, but four months have passed, and Lowen hasn’t signed the contract. Only the young Hal (Mamoudou Athie), a newly minted attorney and family friend, is suspicious: He thinks Loewen is waiting out Jeremiah, hoping the taciturn American’s business crashes, leaving the entire funeral home chain buyable for pennies on the dollar. Hal convinces Jeremiah not only to sue, but to do so in the predominantly Black Hinds County. Here enters Willie E. Gary. 

Most mixed-race “We Must Overcome” films like “Green Book,” “The Help,” and “The Blind Side” falter by trying to fix the long span of racial inequities within the space of a trite feel-good story, in which only the white character truly feels redeemed and recompensed by credits end. But “The Burial” doesn’t believe it can solve microaggressions, inequality, and racism in its 126-minute runtime. It’s also not affixed to healing Jeremiah of some guilty conscience. Rather, Foxx as Willie is the actual lead in one of his best, most vibrant, and funny performances in recent memory (though “They Cloned Tyrone” is a 2023 highlight for him, too). [full review via RogerEbert]