When I was at NYCC in October, I went to the panel for “Mercy”, an Amazon-MGM Studios action / thriller from director Timur Bekmambetov (“Wanted”) and star Chris Pratt, both of whom were in attendance. They debuted the first trailer and shared insights on the film, pushing the concept pretty hard to the crowd. And my reaction to it was: either this story is really gonna work or it’s a gimmick that will fail. One of those two possible outcomes came true.
It’s 2029. Los Angeles is a disaster. Pratt’s Chris Raven is an LAPD officer on trial for the murder of his wife. The Mercy Court (which Chris helped establish) is a judge, jury and executioner A.I. — Judge Maddox (played by Rebecca Ferguson). She explains to Chris (and us), in very thorough detail… the script is super explanatory… what’s about to happen over the next 90 minutes. Chris has to prove he’s innocent in order to make it out of the room alive.
Pratt is in a chair for an hour and a half looking at Ferguson on a screen. Everything about “Mercy” is in excess, including all the visuals / the A.I. graphics. What Chris gets to do is look in all kinds of video cameras and cellphone footage, texts and various files — screens that pop-up at us — to prove his innocence. There’s so much of that, and it’s just not compelling.
Also in excess: the editing, the action, the corny dialogue (I laughed out loud about a half dozen times), the awkward, heightened music, and the over-the-top nature of the performances from Pratt, Ferguson and several supporting players. Marco van Belle’s screenplay is pretty weak. You wanna try to keep up with it early on, and there are a couple of first half developments that make you (ever so) slightly interested. But at about the halfway mark, it takes some wacky turns, forcing you to basically give up your investment and just let it play out.
LCJ GRADE: D
Running Time: 100 min.