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After two Oscar nominees and a damn fine zombie-but-not-a-zombie film, the last review of January consists of the kind of film this month is known for; a dumping ground for movies not good enough to release in summer but not bad enough to cancel altogether.
‘Mercy’ stars Chris Pratt as LAPD cop Chris Raven in a dystopian city where criminals are sequestered in ‘red zones’ and both the trial and sentencing – usually immediate death – process has been farmed out to AI judges. Raven wakes up in an AI court, accused of murdering his wife, with Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) offering the cop 90 minutes to prove his innocence before he gets killed.
On paper, it sounds like Russian director Timur Bekmambetov’s techno-thriller should work, if not as an action-thriller but as a cautionary tale on the dangers of AI and government overreach.
Spoiler alert: it really doesn’t.
Pratt and Ferguson, usually reliable performers, are hamstrung by being either strapped in a chair or an emotionless AI bot for almost all of the film’s runtime, but at least Pratt is allowed to show emotion. It’s paced okay and the odd revelation I found nicely done, but with everything outside of the courtroom presented on either a phone or a computer screen, ‘Mercy’ is left sorely lacking in term of any edge-of-your-seat action. Even the final act – where Pratt gets to (literally) stretch his legs and there is a freeway chase so tepid it makes OJ’s escape attempt look like an F1 race – is pedestrian.
‘Mercy’ seems trying to ape Steven Spielberg’s classic ‘Minority Report’ in terms of world-building, although it is frustratingly light on anything that might distinguish the fact that we’re in any type of future-verse, bar a flying police motorcycle.
Maybe that’s the point; the future is now. Either way, the world-building needed a LOT of work.
If you can get past the (many) shortcomings of ‘Mercy,’ this so-so pound-shop ‘Minority Report’ cyber thriller is semi-enjoyable brainless fun.
