It doesn’t cost a thing to die. But taking care of your body after? That can get pricey.
For generations, the O’Keefe family has helped Mississippi families say goodbye to their loved ones, selling everything from caskets to burial plots to funeral insurance. And, yes, the O’Keefes made a good living from dying over the years.
By the time 1995 rolls around, Jeremiah O’Keefe, the current caretaker of Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Homes, owns eight such funeral parlors across the state, plus the insurance company. But Jerry made sure his clients got their money’s worth: He was attentive and sensitive in their difficult, grief-filled moments. You don’t stay in business for 130 years without serving people’s needs.
But even funeral directors can hit a rough patch, and Jerry’s insurance company has fallen in arrears in its taxes. To pay the state’s piper, Jerry decides to sell part of his business to one of the continent’s burgeoning end-of-life conglomerates: the Loewen Group of Canada.
It’s a painful step for Jerry—made more painful when he meets CEO Ray Loewen in person. When Jerry talks about the needs of his customers, Ray scoffs. “My customers are dead guys,” he jokes. Needs? Their days of needing anything but a box—albeit a very expensive box—are over.
Still, Jerry needs the money, so he shakes Ray’s hand and signs a contract to sell three of his homes to the Loewen Group.
But the Loewen Group doesn’t sign. Weeks go by. Jerry’s tax bill needs paying. And Loewen remains silent. Hal Dockins, a young lawyer in Jerry’s employ, wonders if they even planned to sign. Maybe Loewen had hoped to keep Jerry and his business on the hook until Jerry had to sell more of his business for less.
Well, that won’t do, Jerry thinks. That won’t do at all. The Loewen Group violated their terms of agreement—and Jerry wants them to pay.
But Ray Loewen’s deep pockets are stuffed with cash, and lawyers too. How can a small businessman take on such a man?
Hal has an idea: Why not hire hotshot attorney Willie Gary? He’s good—so good he hasn’t lost a case in 12 years. He’s aggressive. And he’s Black, an important bit of calculus, considering Jerry’s lawsuit is filed in a county that’s 70% Black as well.
But Willie might not want to do it. One, he’s a personal injury lawyer, not a contract attorney. Two, he’s never worked for a white client in his life. And the money Jerry’s asking for? Eight million dollars? That’s hardly enough to snag Willie Gary headlines. Headlines are important to Willie Gary. The lawsuit will need to be for more.
Much, much more.
And, of course, there’s this: the reason why Willie hasn’t lost a case in 12 years. He only works on cases that are surefire winners. And Jerry O’Keefe’s case? There’s nothing surefire about it.
Yeah, death can be pricey. But that’s nothing compared to what it might cost to take on a massive corporation that feeds on it.
By the time we’re introduced to Jerry O’Keefe, he’s already lived a life fit for the movies. In World War II, he earned several medals (and, in real life, became an Ace). As a two-time mayor of Biloxi, Mississippi, he stood up to the Ku Klux Klan. Now 75, Jerry has just one last ambition: to have something to pass on to his children. He loves his family more than anything.
On the surface, Jerry and Willie Gary have little in common. While Jerry’s soft-spoken and gentle, Willie is the sort of lawyer who’ll refer to himself in the third person. He’s a flashy, spotlight-hogging showoff who owns a private jet (called Wings of Justice) comes to Jerry’s attention via an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
But all that braggadocio threatens to obscure the man’s character and conviction. The son of a sharecropper, Willie owned a small landscaping company before he and his family were discriminated against by an apartment complex. He turned his attention to the legal profession in that moment, and his first case was against that same apartment complex.
This trial brings its share of humbling moments for Willie—moments that Willie accepts and learns from. And he discovers, even to his own surprise, that he doesn’t want to win the case for Willie Gary, but for Jerry O’Keefe. In a moment of rare vulnerability, he worries he’ll lose—and let Jerry and everyone else down who’s counting on him.
We should also note that both Willie and Jerry are deeply conscientious family men, and both appear to deeply love their respective wives.
The lawsuit itself isn’t technically about race; but racial and societal issues certainly factor into the case. Willie and his associates gradually realize that the Loewen Group deliberately preys upon the disadvantaged—almost always poor and often minorities—in moments of deep vulnerability. As such, the case takes on a moral dimension, with Jerry and Willie using the courts to address some longstanding wrongs.
We’re introduced to Willie Gary in church, where the lawyer preaches from the pulpit. He contrasts the “White Church” from the “Black Church” there, suggesting he’s always felt welcome in the latter. There, he says, the only name that people call him is “a child of God.”
[Spoiler Warning] That scene takes place in a Black Baptist church, and it’s designed to illustrate how much congregants trust the churches they go to. That’s a critical point to drive home: Deeper into the film, we learn that the Loewen Group worked out a deal with the National Baptist Convention—a group representing 8 million mostly Black believers. The Loewen Group asked the convention to name Loewen as its funerary provider of choice—and also asked that its members become low-level commissioned salespeople. We hear how people who did buy caskets and services from Loewen were sometimes overcharged or learned that what they paid wouldn’t cover what they thought they bought. The film suggests that Loewen’s use of the church to sell caskets (and the convention’s willingness to go along) was a severe violation of trust.
Willie’s presence in the pulpit is no accident: He’s a Christian, and he’s happy to say so. He wears a flashy, diamond-encrusted cross around his neck. He notes that Jerry’s full first name—Jeremiah—is biblical. At one point, he asks someone in the witness stand if he’s a Christian. When the witness says he is, Willie mutters his approval, adding that likely everyone in the courthouse believes in God. (Admittedly, he’s laying the groundwork for that “violation of trust” we talk about above, but he’s also stressing his own belief to the jury.) When Willie faces a field of unmarked graves, he presses his hands together, as if in prayer.
Jerry is less outspoken about his faith. But he also appears to be Christian, at least judging by the cross hanging in he and his wife’s bedroom.
Willie and his wife, Gloria, dance sultrily in Willie’s hotel room; she’s wearing a cleavage-baring top and leather skirt. Gloria traveled to the hotel because she thought Willie might be lonely, and we see the two of them lie on Willie’s bed, fully clothed—as they talk.
Willie and another attorney, a high-powered female lawyer hired by the Loewen Group named Mame Downes, share a meal at the hotel’s restaurant. Willie jokes that it’s almost as if they’re on a date. (I don’t think he was suggesting it should be a date. But even if he was, her brushoff clearly makes it obvious that their chumminess will go no farther.)
We hear about people dying. Ray Loewen salivates at the prospect of aging Baby Boomers passing on, calling it the “golden era of death.”
Willie defends a man who was hit by a truck while riding a bike. (The client also admits to being suicidal at the time.)
Willie tells a roomful of Jerry’s lawyers that they’re “about to go to war,” and says the courtroom will be the site of a “battle to the death.” He also says, during the same speech, that he’d rather “blow my head off than lose a case.”
The Burial gets its R rating strictly for its language issues. We hear about a dozen f-words, a similar number of s-words and a great deal of other curses, including “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p-ss” and “n—er.” God’s name is misused once, and Jesus’ name is abused three times.
Willie buys Mame and her associates a bottle of (very expensive) Cristal champagne when he sees them in the hotel lobby. Ray Loewen serves wine during his business dinner with Jerry. We see characters drink wine and whiskey elsewhere, too—though Willie himself seems to have a weakness for top-shelf ginger ale.
We hear that one of Willie’s clients was seriously drunk when he was hit by a truck.
As mentioned, race is a big theme in The Burial—and we certainly see some racist attitudes in play.
For instance, Mike Allred, Jerry’s longtime lawyer, admits to being “a little prejudiced” when Willie asks whether he’ll be able to work with Black lawyers (and then introduces him to his all-black staff of attorneys and experts). He angers Hal by repeatedly calling him “son,” and Mame’s team of attorneys IS annoyed by his aura of generational “white privilege.”
We hear about other instances of racism as well. And both sides of this legal battle build their teams with the presumed racial makeup of the jury in mind. (For instance, when Willie sees Mame and her all-Black team of attorneys, gripes that they got “out-womaned and out-Blacked.”)
We hear about giant fields that serve as unmarked cemeteries for slaves. We also hear about how statues of Confederate war heroes were erected right on top of those graves.
Telling us that it was “inspired” by a true story, The Burial does something remarkable, turning a dry contract dispute into an engaging, entertaining film. And it does so by doing something rather fitting, given the title: It digs.
It digs into the characters of the two men at its core: quiet Jerry O’Keefe and flashy Willie Gary. And while the characters we meet in the movie are quite different from each other in many ways, they’re drawn to each other, and we’re drawn to them, because of what they share: their love of family and their sense of fair play.
When it looks like the case is coming to an unsatisfactory end, Jerry says that it still comes with some bright spots. Among them? Jerry says that getting to know Willie is the brightest spot of all.
The movie also digs into the case itself, turning a seemingly dry premise into gripping courtroom drama. The story takes an unsigned contract and turns it into a moral crusade—and, perhaps, a bit unfairly so. The law, after all, is supposed to be blind: But the case turns on seeing, and punishing, wider injustices.
Finally, The Burial digs into racial divides, too. And that’s fitting for such a case everyone agrees has nothing to do with race (but absolutely does). It’s a dexterous dance that The Burial performs, and it does so with insight and feeling.
All of which makes the language issues here all the more frustrating.
This truly could’ve been an inspirational, engaging watch for the whole family with just a bit of restraint. The only reason this film gets an R rating is for its language. Certainly, the film’s profanity doesn’t add anything to the story. And when the judge warns Willie Gary to not use profanity in his courtroom, I wish he could’ve turned to the film’s makers and suggested the same thing.
The Burial features two Oscar winners (in Jamie Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones), a fascinating story, a surprisingly sweet script and plenty of other ingredients that good movies need.
Good movies don’t need f-words, though. For The Burial—and its own cinematic contract with the audience—that’s the fine print that we should not ignore.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
