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The Big Picture
- The Burial tells the story of funeral director Jerry O’Keefe and his legal battle against the Loewen Group, a large corporation that reneged on their contract.
- The film features outstanding performances from Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones, who share surprising and charming chemistry.
- The case starts with a few million dollars at stake but escalates to over half a billion, resulting in a nail-biting verdict that awards Jerry an unbelievable $400 million.
Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones make for an unlikely legal team in the courtroom drama The Burial, directed by Maggie Betts, which was recently released on Prime Video. The Burial, which is based on real-life events, tells the story of Jeremiah “Jerry” O’Keefe, a Mississippi-based funeral director and owner of several funeral homes across the state who hires a flashy and ambitious personal injury lawyer named Willie E. Gary. Gary is an up-and-coming trial lawyer who has never lost a case and agrees to take on Jerry’s civil suit against a large corporation called the Loewen Group, which has reneged on a contract between the two parties. Foxx has never been better and shares a surprising and charming chemistry with the salty Jones who is excellent per usual. The pacing of the film clicks along wonderfully and leads to a nailbiting ending when we have to wait for a “guilty” or “not guilty” verdict in a case that began at just a few million dollars but ends up being closer to half a billion at stake by the time the movie ends. So did Willy and Jerry get the verdict they were looking for in the end?
The Burial
Inspired by true events, a lawyer helps a funeral home owner save his family business from a corporate behemoth, exposing a complex web of race, power, and injustice.
- Release Date
- October 13, 2023
- Director
- Maggie Betts
- Rating
- R
- Runtime
- 126 minutes
- Main Genre
- Drama
What is the Case Between Jerry and The Loewen Group in ‘The Burial’?
When Jerry is struggling financially trying to manage nine different funeral homes spread throughout south Mississippi, he is pushed by his wife Annette (Pamela Reed) to explore other options to make ends meet and keep the business afloat. Jerry decides to meet with the CEO of the Loewen Group, Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp) on his yacht in Vancouver, where the two agree to a handshake deal. Jerry will sell the Loewen group three of his nine funeral homes in exchange for them ceasing and resisting selling burial insurance in South Mississippi. They agree and Jerry’s longtime lawyer and friend Mike Allred (Alan Ruck) tells Loewen and his associates that he will draw up a contract for them to sign.
The two groups part ways believing they have a done deal. But as the months progress after the meeting and Raymond Loewen still has yet to sign the contract and consummate the deal, Jerry and his young lawyer friend Hal Dockins (Mamoudou Athie) start to correctly believe that Loewen is trying to stall out the deal as he knows that Jerry is in a dire financial situation. Loewen thinks that if he can just wait it out, Jerry will have to file for bankruptcy, and he’ll be able to have the entire business and continue to sell the lucrative burial insurance in the state. Jerry immediately decides to sue the Loewen Group and the showdown is on!
Is ‘The Burial’ Based on a True Story?
Is the story of Willie and Jerry based on real-life events?
Jerry and Willie Go to Court
After weeks of legal wrangling and strategizing about the best way to win the case, Jerry decides that too much is at risk to allow his old friend, but racially biased attorney Mike to be his lead attorney. He’s heard about the courtroom exploits of a man named Willie Gary in Florida who is undefeated as a personal injury lawyer and has a very charismatic, almost Johnnie Cochran-esque way of making the jury eat out of the palm of his hand. Jerry hires Gary, and it turns out to be the beginning of a tumultuous but fruitful relationship. The case is tried in a southern Mississippi courtroom and Gary immediately starts to do what he does best and weave a story that will lead to the jury finding the Lowen Group guilty of breach of contract and that they should pay a large settlement to Jerry for punitive damages. But things don’t go as smoothly as Willie had planned and Allred replaces him as lead attorney when he makes several crucial mistakes as Jerry is called to testify.
The Final Scenes of ‘The Burial’ Explained
The best scene in the film comes just before the jury renders a final verdict in the case. There is a meeting between Raymond Loewen, his attorney Mame Downs (Jurnee Smollett), and Jerry, his wife Annette, Willie, and an arbitrator. Willie has done what he does best and forces Loewen into a last-ditch effort to settle the case with a large payment before it goes to the jury. The mediator writes a number down on a small slip of paper and everyone takes a look at it, trying to keep a poker face. Finally, it gets to Jerry, and he flatly refuses the offer. Loewen counters with a better offer of $75 million, but again, Jerry refuses. When a put-out Loewen takes issue and asks why he won’t settle, he responds “Because it’s not enough money to put you out of business!” in a way that only Tommy Lee Jones can pull off. The two groups part ways, and they all take their chances with a jury verdict.
The last meaningful scene of The Burial is one of those edge-of-your-seat nail-biters as both sides wait to hear a verdict. What started as a $6 million case has now swelled to well over $100 million. When the jury forewoman reads out that the Loewen Group is, in fact, guilty, she follows up with the order that Loewen must pay Jerry O’Keefe an unbelievable $400 million (which was later appealed and reduced to $175 million), which is an enormous win for Jerry and Gary. Jerry falls back into his seat, gobsmacked by the massive amount of cash awarded. Raymond Loewen scrambles out of the courtroom, pissed off, while a stunned Jerry gets hugs from Gary and Annette. The two friends meet on a spiral staircase outside the courtroom where they sit and exchange an emotional hug.
In the post-movie epilogue, we find out that two years after the verdict, Raymond Loewen is forced to resign as the CEO of his own company and that the company eventually declares bankruptcy just a few years following that. It also shows a real-life picture of Jerry and Gary standing together with their hands clasped and raised while informing the audience that the two remained close friends in the twenty years that followed the case until Jerry passed away in 2017. It is the ending we’ve been hoping for all along and fortunately, because it’s based on a true story, we get to see justice done.
The Burial is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the U.S.
