Director Timur Bekmambetov‘s near-future crime thriller “Mercy” is far more entertaining that you’d ever expect. While not a gamer changer in the genre, the film delivers an engaging way to spend a couple of hours despite being mostly disposable entertainment.
With a story clearly inspired by the far more intellectual “Minority Report,” the film tells the story of police detective Raven (Chris Pratt) who is on trial for murdering his wife. After a bender at a local bar, he wakes up strapped to a chair in the justice court with no recollection of what happened just hours before. Faced with mountains of evidence, Raven has just 90 minutes to prove his innocence before an A.I. judge (Rebecca Ferguson) decides his fate. It’s a system designed by the detective himself to help fight and stop crime in the L.A. area, and he finds himself trapped in its pitfalls and imperfections.
It’s a clean, high-concept hook, and the movie mostly rides that premise as far as it can. The themes toy with predictive justice and technology replacing human judgment, but it’s definitely not smart or sharp. This is a movie that’s thoughtful yet doesn’t take its thinking too far, making it easily accessible to everyone.
The plot gets increasingly far-fetched as the movie goes on, piling on twists that stretch credibility. There’s a ridiculous hostage plot, plenty of obvious misdirections as to whodunnit, and a terrible looking CGI police chase that’s laughably bad. It’s clear that Bekmambetov leans a bit too hard into genre excess (and cut corners in the visual effects department). Still, it works as a blend of crime drama procedural and sci-fi thriller that’s easy to watch even when the logic starts to lose its footing.
It’s disappointing that there’s a version of this movie that could’ve been genuinely thought-provoking, digging deeper into the ethics of A.I., surveillance, and the flaws of the U.S. justice system. Instead, it keeps the commentary pretty surface-level and opts for mind-numbing entertainment over anything too intellectual. I suppose that’s a bit of a letdown, but it’s also easy to overlook because the movie is just so entertaining.
While it may not be smart nor subtle, “Mercy” remains undeniably entertaining. It’s a decent murder mystery with a modern twist on the legal crime drama, even if it never fully lives up to its potential.
By: Louisa Moore
Screen Zealots 