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Mercy – Film Review

Cast: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Synopsis: After being accused of murdering his wife, an LAPD detective must stand trial before a judge and prove his innocence or face execution…

Review: It would not be an exaggeration to say that artificial intelligence (AI) has become one of the most discussed buzzwords in recent years, and for good reason. This technology has increasingly integrated into our daily lives in various ways. However, a pressing question continues to be to what extent this technology will advance further, and could it really lead to the eradication or replacement of certain jobs that one would assume could only be done by humans, such as judges? A futuristic hellscape where a system that has been in place for centuries is made obsolete and the fate of human lives is entrusted to a machine. After sitting through over 100 minutes of this sci-fi “thriller” from Timur Bekmambetov, the dystopia we’ve seen in countless media where machines have taken over and conquered humanity might just sound a little bit more appealing.

With a futuristic Los Angeles in the grip of an increasingly worsening crime wave, the government establishes the Mercy Capital Court, where defendants go before AI judges and are given all the resources they need to prove their innocence. If they can put their probability of guilt below 92% within 90 minutes, they will be spared. LAPD officer Chris Raven (Pratt), who helped to develop the concept of the Mercy court, wakes up and finds himself strapped to a chair before Judge Maddox (Ferguson), accused of murdering his wife Nicole (Wallis). With any and all of the evidence he has at his disposal, including CCTV footage and police footage, Chris must establish the chain of events that led to his wife’s death and to find the evidence that will ensure he is not executed and leave his daughter, Britt (Rogers), an orphan.

In this day and age, it would be nearly impossible to find a more relevant film. With the AI genie well and truly out of the bottle, deeply troubling scenes of police and, more recently, immigration officers using brutally excessive force against whoever they please, combined with the widening wealth gap to fuel societal inequalities. All these potent themes would surely be ripe and fertile ground for a story that weaves together all these potent and pressing issues in our society, to raise the question as to whether we could really trust the justice system and the fate of human lives to AI?

Unfortunately, Marco van Belle’s screenplay spectacularly squanders this potential. The first mistake is to limit his leading man to being strapped to a chair for the majority of the runtime, a crime in and of itself, given he has proven to be more than capable to lead an action movie both on Earth and in the outer reaches of the galaxy. But far more egregiously than wasting Pratt’s potential, the film’s approach to the thorny issue of AI and the access the defendants have to any piece of technology that has a camera on it is extremely sloppy and lazy. It leaves so many unanswered questions around the whole concept of the Mercy Court, its jurisdiction and its function that will make you wonder why on earth you’re putting yourself through watching it.

As if that wasn’t enough, the ensuing mystery is just unbelievably dull and Raven is not nearly given the development needed to make the audience care for his plight, rendering the majority of the 100 minutes of its runtime exceedingly dull in both concept and execution. Ironically, it reads as though someone asked a chatbot to come up with a generic sci-fi thriller about the dangers of technology, and as an addendum, asked it to make some strange and bizarre choices with some characters’ motivations along the way. It amounts to little more than a poor and hollow reinterpretation of a certain Steven Spielberg film released nearly a quarter of a century ago.

The third act (or more specifically, the final 20 minutes) does perk up a little bit by offering audiences a set that is not just some empty courtroom, if you can really call it that, with a humanoid AI judge watching over you. Imagine it as though HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey became human, only instead of that red light ominously glaring at you, you would have the steely and unflinching gaze of Rebecca Ferguson. Ferguson, perfectly cast for the role of a judge though she may be, her performance amounts to just a spectacular waste of her incredible talent. Someone get this woman a gavel so she can play a judge for real! The threadbare excitement offered up is ultimately too little, too late to make it redeemable. It is an act of relief, or indeed, you could say mercy, for everyone when the credits finally begin to roll.