A One Mann’s Movies review of “Mercy”. (2026, 2*, 15).
My illustrious film reviewing colleague, the Reverend Andy Godfrey of Pure247 Radio, raved about “Mercy” on Part 1 of our “Films of January” Flickering Dreams podcast. He gave it a rating of 9/10! Now, we often share the same taste in films, but the hook that personally got me into the cinema for this one was his comment that the film bore some resemblance to Spielberg’s “Minority Report”: one of my absolute favourite Sci-Fi films.
Sadly, I have to report that we don’t ALWAYS share the same taste in films! While its premise had some promise, I found the way the story unfolded to be just plain ridiculous!
One Mann’s Movies Rating:
Plot:
It’s 2030 in the city of LA and violent crime has been decimated thanks to the Mercy program…. an AI judge, jury and executioner that uses all available web data to determine the guilt or innocence of a suspect. So it is that cop Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) awakes to find himself in the Mercy hot-seat, having 90 minutes to prove to the AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) that he didn’t murder his wife Nicole (Annabelle Wallis).
Certification:
UK: 12A; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC website: “Moderate violence, threat, injury detail, drug misuse, strong language”.)
Talent:
Starring: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Jeff Pierre, Rafi Gavron, Kenneth Choi.
Directed by: Timur Bekmambetov.
Written by: Marco van Belle
Running Time: 1h 39m.
Summary:
Positives:
- An interesting concept, with tension added by most of the film being (almost) in real-time.
- Chris Pratt gives a decent performance.
Negatives:
- The story has clunky moments and its twists are utterly preposterous.
- Some of the acting is cheesy, with Rebecca Ferguson also not being at her best.
- The actions of the AI in this are ridiculous and totally irrational.
- Use of significant AI in the truck chase?
Full Review of “Mercy”:
Great concept, shame about the delivery.
So I will agree with the good Reverend Godfrey that the film does have the look and feel of a cheap and cheerful “Minority Report”. It also has, thrown into this mix, a good dollop of the digitally-focused thrillers “Searching” and “Missing“, with its constant access to recording devices. Which is not a bad thing: they were both very good movies.
Officer Raven (Pratt) awakes to find himself strapped in a chair in the middle of a (ridiculously over-engineered) courtroom. In a gloriously mansplaining way, he is being played an ad for the Mercy program: I’m sure he doesn’t really need the “previously on” video for this! Then Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) appears to tell him that he is on trial for the murder of his wife. He sees the murder scene in high-def and is traumatised (but surely not traumatised enough) to learn of he gorgeous wife’s bloody demise! He has 90 minutes to present evidence that it wasn’t him, even though all of the evidence points to him: his “guilty likelihood” rising to 98% (“because it can never get to 100%”).
Investigating under pressure.
Raven employs all of his police investigative knowledge, the video feeds available to him (which is basically every registered device in the city) and the help of his police colleague Jacqueline ‘JAQ’ Diallo (Kali Reis), zipping around the city on a flying police bike, to try to prove his innocence before the chair automatically executes him with a “sonic blast”.
In this sense, the film plays out in real-time (although, given the film is 99 minutes, there are a lot more than 9 minutes of ‘extra time’ in the film, so I think they cheated!) Thus we are in the same ballpark as real-time classics like “Phone Booth”, “Buried”, “United 93” as well as older classics like “High Noon” and “Rope”: definitely an appealing aspect of the film.
I was enjoying the first 20 minutes, but then….
So, the film sets up the premise well and has a reasonably engaging turn from a flustered Pratt (though a lot less hysterical than I would have been in the circumstances). But then the wheels came off the story for me. There are various red herrings pursued, wasting his valuable time:
- his precious little daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) turns out to be not so cultured and innocent as she looks;
- a ‘prime suspect’ is established for us the viewer just by looking at a photo board! One individual SCREAMS OUT “Look at me, I MUST be the dodgy one!” like Sirius Black in the Potter Wanted poster (of course he’s not)!;
- and we dive into even more ridiculous plot holes as to who it is and why, descending to a final reel twist that just juddered my jaw into dropping to the floor at the level of crassness.
All in all, this came over as truly desperate storytelling that lost all of the credibility for me that the film had built during its set-up.
Ludicrous AI!
To add insult to logical injury, ‘Judge Maddox’ (Rebecca Ferguson, really not at her acting best here) becomes COMPLETELY irrational as an AI as her impeccable logic is proved not to fully hold water. She twitches and cricks her neck in AI-torment like – and you would need to be my sort of age to get this reference – Max Headroom used to do on British Channel 4 TV. And then – for a logical thinking computer – she makes the most utterly ridiculous decisions, adding emotion into the situation where none is warranted.
Crash, Bang, Wallop!
Because the writer didn’t think a death row plot would satisfy audiences enough, the film concludes with a ludicrous truck chase through the city with the vehicle demolishing hundreds of cars on the way. Even with a budget of $60m (reported) the amount of destruction points to extensive use of special effects here…. and it shows. I’d even go as far as to say that many of the smashes really smell of extensive use of AI in their production. It all ends up looking like some cheap video game footage.
Summary Thoughts:
Although some clearly like this one (sorry Andy!), I thought this was an interesting premise utterly wasted. One to avoid in my book.
Where to watch?
Trailer:
The trailer for the film is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSS4yqd0x6o.
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