At least three times during the “Mercy” press screening, I found myself laughing at the absurdity of the events unfolding on screen as a barefoot, hungover Chris Pratt is strapped to a chair in a courtroom overseen by an A.I. judge (Rebecca Ferguson). Set in 2029 Los Angeles, Pratt plays a detective accused of murdering his wife, with only 90 minutes to prove his innocence or face execution by the very system he helped create—the Mercy Court. The twist? He must stay strapped in, relying on tech such as cell phones, surveillance cameras, and witness testimony to secure his freedom. Essentially, it’s a barrage of tiny, rapid pop-up screens for 90 minutes—imagine watching “Minority Report” with Tom Cruise in front of the transparent video wall for the entire film. Pray for the Angel of Mercy, also known as “the credits.”
Writer-director Timur Bekmambetov gained praise with the supernatural fantasy thrillers “Night Watch” and “Day Watch” in the early 2000s. Since then, he has shifted into a screenlife filmmaker, using technology like tablets and smartphones to tell stories, as in “Unfriended,” “Searching,” and “Profile.”
With “Mercy,” the audience is assaulted by screen overload as LAPD detective Chris Raven (Pratt) wakes up, strapped to a massive “Star Trek” chair, in a concrete room with a giant video wall. Welcome to Mercy Capital Court, the judicial system presided over by A.I. Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Only the baddest of the bad are sent here, where Maddox acts as judge, jury, and executioner.
“I shouldn’t be here. I helped create the Mercy program,” screams Raven. Here’s where Maddox introduces Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic” video, transitioning from judge to VJ, followed by news that Raven is actually on “Punk’d,” followed by the return of the game show “Remote Control,” where he’s the first contestant. Unfortunately, none of that happens—back to the story. Gen Zers, google “MTV.”
Maddox informs Raven that he is on trial for the murder of his wife (Annabelle Wallis), throwing up videos of the local news (“LAPD officer arrested for murder”), doorbell videos of the angry officer demanding his wife unlock the door, and footage of their daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), arriving home to discover the body. Raven doesn’t remember any of that, hungover from binge drinking. He informs Maddox, “I loved my wife. I didn’t hurt her.”
Raven has 90 minutes to prove his innocence using the city’s municipal cloud, which displays a billion tiny 3D screens. These include smartphone footage, surveillance camera clips, Ring doorbell videos, police body camera recordings, bird-feeder cameras, and FaceTime calls to his partner Jaq Diallo (Kali Reis of “True Detective: Night Country”), who acts as Raven’s eyes and hands outside. Reis does her best with the material.
For nearly the entire film, Pratt remains in the chair barking orders at the judge to call up different footage and people while trying to exonerate himself. For artificial intelligence, Ferguson’s Maddox seems human as she smiles, blinks, and appears to second-guess the program. I understand the whole realistic avatar thing, but she comes across as human while Pratt feels a bit A.I.-like.
Written by Marco van Belle, the plot involves missing chemicals worth $16 million, and “The Anarchist Cookbook’ shows up. However, by the film’s climax—its only real action scene—the CGI effects have numbed the audience. The characters are so flat that there’s no emotional connection. I felt so detached that I didn’t care about any of them, and I even laughed aloud at several tone-deaf moments. In one scene, a virtual semi-truck zooms by on the video screen while Pratt is strapped into the chair, and his hair is blown by the wake. Must be a D-BOX seat.
(1 star)
Now showing in theaters
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