Rob Reviews "Mercy"

In seeing the trailer for Mercy, it is easy to dismiss it as an indictment of the reliance on Artificial Intelligence going too far.  Taking place in “the near future” (I am estimating in the early 2030s, given a couple of context clues), Los Angeles has not only put those that have the potential to be “serious offenders” in places called “red zones,” but it has also adopted the “Mercy Court” system, where major offenders are strapped to a chair and appear before an AI judge.  Being given all of the records at the judge’s disposal including cell phone records, traffic cameras, closed-circuit systems, and internal search engines, the accused has ninety minutes to get their level of guilt probability under ninety-two percent or face immediate execution.

Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) wakes up in said chair and becomes the nineteenth person (and first law enforcement officer) to find themselves in the chair after being accused of the murder of his estranged wife and on trial with Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson).  With the odds (and most of the Internet) against him, he has to find his center and use everything at his AND Mercy’s disposal to clear his name before Mercy clears him of this life.

To answer the obvious question here, this is NOT done in real-time.  (That type of storytelling is fascinating to me, so I verified when the clock started.)  That doesn’t hurt the overall enjoyment of the film because that part of it is more about heightening the stakes of Raven’s situation than about an actual plot device itself.  Timur Bekmambetov (who worked with him on Wanted) does a great job bringing the story to life with SOLID visuals and sound editing that I am actually interested to re-watch at home that doesn’t overdo it. 

Another thing I was glad worked here is given the number of films that have come out since the pandemic that try to keep everything contained on a computer screen just not getting the job done.  There is a great balance between what Raven sees and going to those shots in the “real world” breaks that cheesy mold in a way that enhances the story and puts the audience right in the middle of the action.  There are even some points that it almost feels first-person in the same way that Hardcore Henry did for an entire film (and also pulled it off well).

Going back to the opening statement of this review, I am not sure that Mercy really takes a stand on the AI revolution one way or the other.  The Mercy Court is neither the hero nor the villain here, but there is also a character arc to it that I found intriguing.  This film lies just this side of the pure action, adrenaline-fueled type of picture and the sci-fi thinker that I am glad it didn’t lean too far into.  The latter part of that can be reserved for those where AI become the end of us all for the serious techies amongst us; this film is one that can simply be enjoyed for a cool way to spend a couple of hours in a theater.  By the way, seeing that it is available in 3-D may not be anything to scoff at: I was skeptical from the trailer, but having seen it now, I actually wouldn’t mind a second viewing in that format.