I’m begging you for Mercy, why won’t you release me?

Amazon, who seems to have an increasing trend of isolationist films on their slate, with War Of The Worlds, Mercy, and Project Hail Mary all three requiring n actor to spend the overwhelming majority of the film by himself, or in the case of Project Hail Mary, at least as the only man with a face. Mercy is another dystopian thriller about a future not so far from ours, where our privacy has been given up to a world full of cameras and screens, and algorithms and artificial intelligence now run the criminal justice system. Welcome to Mercy Court, where the judge presiding is driven by data and probabilities. There isn’t even a need for a prosecution at this point, and since the film never reached the sentencing phase, I’m definitely not sure how that pans out. It’s one of those films where someone went “would’ve it be cool if”, but then never really plotted out that idea beyond a basic level.

We basically open with the realization that Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) has been arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife, and though he believes he’s innocent, he’s also a hardcore alcoholic, who has zero memory of anything useful about the night before. Notably, you’ll hear that Chris was a detective who put away the first person to be tried in Mercy court, and was a vocal supporter of the court. This is given to you in the clunkiest news broadcast since you and your friends read the news over the intercom in elementary school. I heard this news report, full of nonsense, and thought we were telegraphing too much immediately.

Over the course of the film, Pratt does his best Ice cube impersonation, reacting to screens as the lone human, and trying to communicate with his former partner Jack (Kali Ries), who has agreed to run around Los Angeles for the next 90 minutes to try and help Chris prove it wasn’t him.

At first, I thought it’s the daughter. There was an unnecessary chunk of exposition at the beginning, and it mentioned the name of the first person on trial in Mercy court, without ever really talking about the case, or who that was. So, when Chris has a whiny teenager, who we see talking to some guy in a bathtub social media vlog, and get a note about how her socials are anti-AI, I figured the film would connect her to the first guy arrested, maybe through a boyfriend, and then have the film end with Chris confessing guilt to save his daughter once he figures it out. There’s a point in the film where the AI mentions to him that he still has time to keep proving his innocence after he hits a wall, and it says he can keep going as long as he doesn’t admit guilt. I assume, the trial is over when you confess, and that’s it. Bullet to the head? So, Chris could have started connecting dots, and thrown himself under the bus.

Nope. The actual reasoning is a bit trickier, which made the film a little more interesting, even if it does feel like a reach. Basically, while the final third of the film lacks any semblance of coherence, it is a gamble worth taking, as it becomes the first thing in the film that doesn’t feel spoonfed through overly leading clues. Once you get a whiff of where we’re headed though, the film needs one more third act twist to really bring it on home.

All films start with me inherently positive. Mercy was a film that started, if I had a dial, probably between a six and seven. I wasn’t instantly convinced by anything, but remained optimistic. Then, I started to notice bad dialogue, and that Ice Cube flavor of having an actor reacting to screens. I’d say we dipped down to between a 4 and a 5, for sure. but, as the film started to pull out the intended ending, the score started to rise, and one last extra twist got the film so close. I almost felt like I could say watch this film. but ultimately, I can’t. At the end of the day, while this film floated closer to the middle, I still would not recommend it, which is unfortunate as I think I’m one of the few remaining humans still excited to see Chris Pratt on screen.

The director of Wanted brings not much to a film that seems to only answer the question of whether or not war Of The Worlds could have been better. But in the grand scheme of thrillers of this ilk, Minority Report still did a way better job with a very similar premise. Basically, you’ve seen this already, and it was better the last time.

While none of the notable actors here are ever bad, no one gave their best work either. Everyone has a better film, a better role. Mercy just plods along, not really ever truly planting itself in a way that leads me to believe anyone will be talking about this film even a year from now, let alone five or ten. It is a movie of the moment, with a 90 minute runtime, intended to temporarily distract. This is not great cinema. I also didn’t dislike it so much that I’d fight someone who did like it. Cinema is subjective most of the time, and this nearly got there, it just fell a little short. It just is a little too sloppy, and could have used a second pass on the screenplay.

The audio description was mostly fine, though I had so many questions about Mercy Court, how it works, what it looks like, more about Rebecca Ferguson’s presence in the film, and how this was filmed with Pratt staring at screens. The audio description is essential, but it isn’t exceptional.

It hinges on the hope that the audience has either forgotten or never saw Minority Report, a far better well-written dystopian crime thriller that Mercy will never be.

Rotten: 5.8/10