TL;DR – This is an insipid, soulless, and excruciating attempt to appear relevant, but it ends up having little genuine intellectual fortitude.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to watch this film.

Mercy Review Introduction –

Now, I’ll be honest from the outset, while I always try to go into a film not knowing the general reaction towards it, sometimes you simply can’t escape finding out. In that vein, I did know that Mercy was generally considered a bit of a dumpster fire before I walked in, but people and critics can be very wrong, so given the cast and the premise, I was ready to give it the benefit of the doubt. I should not have given it the benefit of the doubt.  

So, to set the scene, in the not-too-distant future, Los Angeles is under attack from crime, civil disturbance, and a court system about to fail. To change that up, they institute the Mercy System, where violent offenders of capital crimes are sent to the Mercy Court, where an AI judge (Rebecca Ferguson) gives them 90 minutes to lower their guilt probability to under 92%, or they are instantly executed. One of the early proponents of this new system is LAPD Detective Christopher “Chris” Raven (Chris Pratt), who supported it after his partner (Kenneth Choi) was killed in the line of duty. Which is unfortunate for him, because he now sits strapped to a chair with that same AI judge staring down at him watching a clock count down and a guilt probability that he killed his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), sitting at 97.5%.

The Good

Okay, I don’t think it will be a surprise that I will be quite negative about this film, but that does not mean there were some good elements in there. The first is that the scenario they presented did have promise. This is a film from a long line of ‘Oops, I am a police officer that the very system I helped make has now come for me’. See I, Robot, The Minority Report and The Demolition Man, to name three similar examples. So, there is a good foundation here, and the AI component could have been a good shift in the narrative. Indeed, given how drastic and ethically fraught AI’s real-world impact has become, this could have been a fascinating exploration. I also liked how they represented real-life 3D spaces in the artificial constraints of the court. It was an engaging visual style that supported the film in a number of spaces including where they walk through the murder scene.

The Bad

First major problem the film has is with its casting; at no point do you believe that Chris Pratt’s character killed his wife because there is no way Chris Pratt would take a role with that much edge to it. So, from the very moment you are introduced to the scenario, you can already work out how it would end, with probably a higher than 92% certainty. I think he was cast for his name, so you could call it a ‘Chris Pratt thriller’, but that worked against the story they were trying to tell. It also hurts because he is not that compelling a character, because they have him perform with a hangover the whole film. While it is clear that Rebecca Ferguson is trying to bring some life to her character, it honestly felt like the two leads were never on set at the same time, and while it is not Red One bad, it is still a problem. Finally, while they give a good foundation to build on, the investigation that follows kind of falls flat for most of the runtime, with only one fascinating use of the Searching mechanic. Also, I am sorry, but whoever thought having a literal ticking clock for the narrative did not understand how it undercuts the pacing at every turn.

The Ugly

Unfortunately, while a poor narrative is a bad follow up to a good foundation, it is even worse form to show that you have absolutely nothing of substance to say about the very topic you are interrogating. If you are going to tell a morality tale, have the respect of the audience to actually say something of substance about the morality you are exploring. At best, we get some lukewarm, wishy-washy, everyone is sort of right, and also everyone is sort of wrong, also we are doing True Lies at the end for some reason. There is no self-reflection, no growth, no inspection of what this system means, or why LA is the state that it is, the role police play in that, or why handing everything over to an AI is fundamentally bad. It is morally insipid, and I loathe it for that. Also, when we get to the action scenes, we get some of the worst digital car chases I have seen in a while. You expect it in wide shots, but you gotta sell those close-ups, and they didn’t.

Recommendation

In the end, do we recommend Mercy? Look, I am sure there is a market for a film like this, and I feel if you are a fan of Rebecca Ferguson, you will still get something out of it. But for me, no, unfortunately I cannot recommend it. At no point does it make any interesting choices with the scenario that it sets for itself. At no point did I find the narrative compelling or even engaging. More than that, I was constantly reminded of better films that tackled the same subject material. While I don’t expect every movie to be Steven Spielberg quality, I would hope that it would at least try to stamp something of value on the production. I don’t know where in the production things broke down, the script, the direction, the edit, or if there were external issues that forced problems; I just know I paid over $20 for just some MnMs and a drink on top of a ticket to see this film, and I don’t think it respected my time or money.  

Have you watched Mercy? Let us know what you thought in the comments below. If you liked Mercy, we would recommend The Accountant 2 to you because it also has a similar investigation focus with clear stakes if failure happens, but they also have something to say about the world they are exploring.   

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Bluesky at @Tldrmovrev, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Mercy
Directed by – Timur Bekmambetov
Written by – Marco van Belle
Music by – Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography by – Khalid Mohtaseb
Edited by – Austin Keeling & Lam T. Nguyen
Production/Distribution Companies – Amazon MGM Studios, Atlas Entertainment, Bazelevs Company & Sony Pictures
Starring – Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Kenneth Choi, Rafi Gavron & Jeff Pierre
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: 12; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 12A; United States: PG-13