Mercy

 

Mercy
Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis
Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

The idea of the "ticking clock" is a gimmick movies and television shows do to illicit excitement and anticipation in the viewer. It's easy to tell a story that can end whenever it wants, but when you're up against a timeline that gets closer and closer to some sort of catastrophe, your excitement levels go up because - even though 99.9% of the time everything is resolved at the 1 second line - we think that the end will come before the final verdict is reached. So when you have a story that could technically last awhile, but decide to throw in the "ticking clock," it turns something more mundane into an exciting thrill ride even though logically it shouldn't be.

In the near future, lawmakers in Los Angeles along with LAPD detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) create the Mercy Capital Court, a judicial system controlled by Artificial Intelligence that eliminates the need for a court trial and jury and instead serves as judge, jury, and executioner. The defendant has access to everything in the data banks (including all cameras, cell phones, and everything they need to mount a defense) and start with a certain guilty percentage. If they can get it down to 92% in ninety minutes, then they won't be executed, but if not, then they'll be immediately disposed of. Chris awakens in the court after a blackout drunk afternoon and finds himself on trial for the murder of his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis) under the watchful AI eye of Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Using the tools at his disposal, Chris must recreate what happened that day and who would have motive and opportunity to kill his wife, and the clock is ticking. 

The concept for "Mercy" takes heavily from films like "Minority Report" and "The Fugitive" in that in a futuristic setting there's a new form of justice ("Minority Report") and a man possibly falsely accused of killing his wife ("The Fugitive"). If this was a typical murder mystery, there would be no need for the "ticking clock" concept, but that's this film's greatest strength - otherwise it'd be another dull procedural. As it is, it's used somewhat effectively as the film progresses and Chris's clock ticks lower, but for a movie that occurs in real time (once the clock starts ticking), it surprisingly takes awhile for it to get its footing. Fortunately, for any true crime aficionado, uncovering the case is the exciting part - even if the thinly written script announces the true killer numerous frames before Chris catches on. Yet, somehow, that's just the tip of the iceberg as the movie snowballs from a simple murder mystery to a possibly city-ending event.

Chris Pratt is at his strongest when he's doing comedic action bits with ensemble casts like "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Jurassic World," but when those are stripped away he really shows his lack of depth as an actor. He is anxious, angry, worried, and belligerent, and you can tell he's trying to act that way as opposed to coming off naturally. He also falls under the pitfalls of generic writing such as this, where he wastes precious minutes at the start trying to claim he doesn't deserve to be there, he didn't do it, and other platitudes that could've been used more usefully by mounting his defense. When he finally hits the lawyer role, however, things pick up exponentially and becomes more exciting as you try to figure out how anyone else could've done it, considering every video camera at the house never showed anyone else entering or leaving. 

Rebecca Ferguson plays the emotionless AI Judge Maddox, and her calming presence is a stiff 180 from Pratt's erratic Raven. Yet even in this challenging role she manages to pull off a decent performance, making you wonder what's really going on behind the AI mask - if anything - because not even she shows her cards fully and, despite claiming she's impossible to make an error, shows them from time to time. 

The mystery is the biggest aspect of the film, and makes for exciting viewing and even a repeat one to pick up on things you might've missed. Seeing how the pieces fall together is well thought-out and explained - sometimes beaten over our heads - and while it's easy to determine the killer, the motive itself is quite lengthy and twisty. I was buying it for the most part, but then events happen that sent the script over the rails and into parody territory, where things started making less sense and more twists were thrown in seemingly haphazardly that didn't make sense, but by that time I was on top of the snowball just running on it to make sure I didn't fall, and it was a very exciting time.

The movie also points to the use of AI, and how it's become more and more commonplace in today's society, along with the loss of privacy. Chris gets access to every camera in the city, every cell phone record, every bank statement from anyone he asks of, and more - which nowadays would be considered a strong breach of privacy, but it seems that we're also heading in that direction. Also, AI serves as the ultimate judge, jury, and executioner - attempting to be faultless but as we all know, nothing truly is, despite our rapid use of AI tech like ChatGBT and Gemini that can doctor photos, create fake videos, and tell false stories that come off as truth. If the Mercy Capital Court ever becomes a real thing, we're in real trouble.

The Score: B+