What is Mercy?
Mercy. Not the unified cry of UK audiences when the Christmas Day TV schedules are released but here the name of an AI judicial system that negates the need for a jury and streamlines everything to a 90 minute hearing. It’s all the time the defendant gets to present their case that they are innocent to the AI generated judge and a guilt percentage system. It’s a system that detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) had been a keen advocate until he finds himself strapped into a chair having been accused of his wife’s murder.
The story of Mercy…
Essentially a stagey two hander where the Mercy system allows him to call up access to all manner of information to prove his innocence. Except when the clock starts ticking if he’s not proved his case he’ll be fried alive in the chair like a wrongly wired recliner chair in a retirement home. Effectively played out in real time Pratt investigates his wife’s murder able to call up his female detective partner (Kali Reis) who’s not wholly convinced of her former partners innocence but is willing to help him anyway. What follows is a race against time to demolish the case against him that’s if he is innocent in the first place.
That cast…..
After the Jurassic World & then the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy as well as a couple of big budget Netflix actioners Pratt continues his action man roles apace. His sweaty heroics play against Mercy’s AI Judge Maddox, played by the always reliable Rebecca Ferguson, as a blank faced, vacant eyed character that could so easily have seen cast with Amanda Holden.
That director…..
Though much of the film is a two hander set in a big room that’s OD’ing on CGI as Pratt sets out to prove his innocence it builds towards the obligatory climactic action set piece and that’s because Mercy is helmed by Timur Bekmambetov. This is the director who gave the visually striking ‘Daywatch’ and ‘Nightwatch’ followed it up with the physics defying Angelina Jolie blockbuster ‘Wanted’, then the ludicrous ‘Abraham Lincoln : Vampire Hunter’ before the disastrous remake of Ben Hur (reviewed HERE). For Mercy he has reined in the gravity defying set pieces and here the climatic set piece owes much to the opening scene of Beverly Hills Cop but with a bigger budget and the benefit of CGI. It’s an entertaining enough film shot in an not particularly necessary 3D that moves along briskly, perhaps too briskly at times with the evidence and revelations played out at lightning speed perhaps deliberately so in order for audiences not to dwell too heavily on the plot contrivances. But that aside perhaps we should be grateful for Mercy in January, a month that is often a dumping ground for forgettable fayre, with what is an enjoyable bit of hokum.
related feature : Chris Pratt introduces his new thriller, ‘Mercy’ at London’s BFI IMAX
related feature : Is the casting of the new Magnificent 7 just political correctness…….?
Here’s the Mercy trailer….
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