The Burial (2023) review

Funeral director Jeremiah O'Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones) gets into a contract dispute with Raymond Loewen (Bill Camp), the CEO of a Canadian real estate firm (who wants to capitalize on Baby Boomers dying off), and hires tenacious attorney Willie E. Gary (Jamie Foxx) to represent him ... but Loewen puts together an impressive legal team himself, including expert cross-examiner Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett).  It's loosely based on a lawsuit from 1995 - the actual O'Keefe was ultimately awarded $175 million - and tries to be this "small business versus massive corporation" battle, but the courtroom scenes are a drag (despite Foxx's best efforts to keep them lively) and it comes across as yet another Liberal Guilt movie, where it lectures the audience about the (repulsive) treatment of the slaves and how they were buried in a large plot with no headstones.  Even O'Keefe's long-time friend and lawyer Mike Allred (Alan Ruck) - who's willing to work with African-Americans on the case - turns out to have had a grandfather that was in the Ku Klux Klan ... and yet, isn't it a good thing that he hasn't chosen the same path and made an effort to grow as a person and learn from the past?  Isn't that the goal?  And Ms. Smollett is so convincing I wonder if a certain family member of hers should have hired her....