“Mercy”: A Missed Opportunity in Disguise

Mercy is a sci-fi crime thriller directed by Timur Bekmambetov, starring Chris Pratt as Detective Chris Raven and Rebecca Ferguson as an AI Judge named Maddox.

The movie was released in theaters but is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

The film takes place in 2029 in Los Angeles, California, where a high crime rate leads to a new judicial system governed by artificial intelligence called “Mercy Capital Court.”

The movie follows Detective Chris Raven, who helped create this court, waking up to find himself strapped to a chair in an empty room, with an AI hologram of Judge Maddox in Mercy Capital Court.

He’s accused of the murder of his wife and has 90 minutes to prove his innocence, or he will be executed. There have only been 18 people tried in this court,  all 18 of them resulting in them being found guilty and executed.

Chris seems to be unaware of his wife being killed, as he was drunk on the same day of the murder. The court can pull all surveillance to be viewed as evidence in relation to the alleged murder. 

The film finds ways to be visually interesting, trying to implement the feeling of VR with the video evidence, while at the same time feels like it’s missing a lot of potential by confining the setting to one prominent room. Yes, the film takes us to different parts of LA through different people’s perspectives, primarily through Chris’s partner, Jacqueline Diallo. 

The movie tries its best to make you want to care, but as Chris remains clueless about his whereabouts for most of the movie, it simply becomes frustrating as it feels like we’re being led around in circles. Fortunately him being a detective and trying to put pieces together helps slowly push the narrative forward. 

Usually, when we see Chris Pratt, we are used to seeing him as an action star, while in this movie, he tries to make sitting in one place feel engaging, but it just falls short of that. 

His acting is able to keep the film afloat with a big help from having Rebecca Feurgeson acting across from him. She is portraying an AI entity, but it’s hard to believe in certain moments, as you feel as though she begins to almost empathize with Chris, questioning his actions and nearly rooting for him to solve the murder. This seems the opposite of what a judicial AI would do.

Mercy was initially released in theaters and, based on the trailer, seemed like a high-energy action/thriller, but once the movie begins, you realize it’s not that kind of action/thriller.

In the third act, the energy does rise, the stakes do feel higher, and everything starts to finally come together. The ending, all in all, is pretty predictable. After you go on this journey of discovery of who killed Chris’s wife, you can catch on pretty quickly as to who was behind it. 

Overall, this film is an entertaining watch that will be more worth streaming at home than going to the theater. While I am a movie theater advocate, there are some exceptions, and Mercy is one of them, and I believe Amazon knew that too, which is why they got the distribution rights.