SPOILER-FREE PLOT SUMMARY
In the year 2029, LAPD Detective Chris Raven (played by Chris Pratt) is put on trial for killing his wife in the kitchen of their home earlier that day. In an effort to expedite the justice system, Los Angeles has created the Mercy Court, a process where the accused is brought before a prejudice-free AI judge in order to render a final verdict within 90 minutes. The AI mediator, Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson), can access all video footage, phone records, emails, secure documents, etc. Anything on the cloud is at the disposal of the accused (via the court) with the expressed purpose of proving their innocence, but only during the trial. Doorbell video footage proves Detective Raven went home just before the murder and audio evidence shows he had a verbal altercation with his wife during that time, breaking her favorite vase. Moments after he leaves, his daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) comes home from a sleepover and finds her mom dying on the kitchen floor. The authorities are called and Detective Raven is taken into custody at a local bar. From the chair, he’s able to call his alcoholics anonymous sponsor Rob (Chris Sullivan), his daughter and his partner, Detective Jacqueline Diallo (Kali Reis), in an effort to build a case for his innocence. Instead, multiple motives surface, increasing his probability of guilt. Only after accessing his daughter’s Instagram video posts does he start to believe he’s found a route to exoneration.
SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
If 2002’s MINORITY REPORT and 2025’s WAR OF THE WORLDS had a baby, MERCY would be it.
Director Timur Bekmambetov takes a fun flight of fancy written by Marco van Belle and delivers a pretty good product. When dealing with an AI premise, it’s not easy to show files being opened, text being read, computer folders being accessed, etc. but Bekmambetov manages to make it visually appealing.
And, if that’s not enough, his cast had some serious limitations as well, thanks to the nature of the story. Almost the entirety of Pratt’s acting takes place in a single chair and the literal entirety of Ferguson’s performance takes place on a digital screen. Yet, somehow, he gives the audience a compelling and relatively intense murder mystery against a futuristic backdrop.
As an Amazon MGM Studios project, the studio easily could’ve brought this straight to their own streaming service. Instead, they did what they should’ve done and released it in theaters. On the heels of Netflix ruining A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE with a limited theatrical run, seeing MERCY get it’s time in cinema houses, despite being an Amazon movie, is a nice breath of fresh air.
At the end of the day, I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s great filmmaking but I would say it’s a damn good time in the theater. Usually January is where movies go to die but MERCY keeps the audience guessing through most of the film, which is essential in a movie like this. Unfortunately, it tries to get too cute toward to the end. Remember when AGYLLE ruined a solid first half with a unnecessarily convoluted second half? MERCY flirts with that too and, like ARGYLLE, should’ve left well enough alone. It doesn’t have to be ground breaking. It just has to be fun.
And, for the most part, it is.
JKG SCORE: 6.5
Untitled Film Project 