Mercy
Set in a dystopian near-future (which seems to loosely blame the growing homeless for all crime in the city), the convoluted thriller from screenwriter Marco van Belle and director Timur Bekmambetov stars Chris Pratt as LAPD Detective Chris Raven. As the film opens, Raven has already been strapped to an electric chair and forced to prove his innocence to an Artificial Intelligence (played by Rebecca Ferguson) who has already judged him guilty.
Bending over backwards to make AI a hero, despite the insane legalities of such and contrived setup which, as we see here, is deeply flawed, Mercy will likely force you to tap out long before the end credits begin to roll. Produced by Amazon, a company with a pretty hefty stake in AI, you can almost see the producers popping a chub off-camera over their corporate synergy dressed up in drag as a theatrical film. I hope Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson got well paid, and free Amazon Prime for life, for this fiasco.
In a future where privacy rules don't exist, and Detective Raven only has 90 minutes to prove his innocence, he's given full access to anything and everyone (from crime scenes to private texts and corporate documents) who might shine a light on who really killed his wife (Annabelle Wallis) including ordering around the local police force based on scant evidence and hunches.
Despite the ticking clock, Mercy struggles to build any tension until the final 10 minutes of the film (after the trial portion is all but complete). In a film that needs to champion AI, it can't have the judge be the villain so Raven will learn to work with it and even respect it while he does the heavy lifting in proving his innocence (which is never really in doubt). In its climax, the film's already loose grip of reality is thrown out the window to get to a point where the movie can deliver its message to say it's okay if AI isn't perfect because humans are imperfect too (so go ahead and turn over all your rights and privacy to them and let them judge you?). No thanks.
- Title: Mercy
- IMDb: link
