'Mercy' Review: Chris Pratt must prove his innocence to AI judge in forgettable cyber thriller
If you're like me, you watch movies as an escape. Whether it's at the theater or at home, it's a chance to put your phone down and go somewhere else for two hours. But in the digital age, there's a growing subgenre of films where the so-called "escape" is on phone and computer screens. There's apparently a name for this which I was completely unaware of (thanks ChatGPT!); it's called screenlife.
Examples include horror flicks like 2014's "Unfriended," thrillers like 2018's "Searching" and 2022's "Missing" as well as last year's widely-panned "War of the Worlds" remake. If you missed those, there's an episode of "Modern Family" that takes a page from the screenlife playbook.
Notably, all those screenlife movies I cited were produced by Kazakh-Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, a pioneer in the subgenre who is now out with his new screenlife-adjacent film, "Mercy."
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"Mercy" follows Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) who is accused of murdering his wife. But instead of standing trial, he must prove his innocence to Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson), an AI-generated judge who also serves as his jury and executioner.
Set in a not-too-distant future Los Angeles, where rampant crime had become an epidemic, the local government implemented the Mercy justice system which it credits for reducing crime in the city. Raven, an early champion of the AI program, now follows 18 others who ultimately met their fate in the same chair he's locked into.
Based on the available evidence, Maddox rates Raven's guilt at 97.5%. He must convince her to lower that rating to 92%, which she explains would provide enough reasonable doubt to let him go, within 90 minutes, or else he's immediately executed. At his disposal is virtually all the entire city's cloud data — cellphone records, emails, security camera footage, you name it — which are required by law to be part of the Mercy system. He's also able to make phone calls, like to his daughter, his LAPD partner and his AA sponsor (no movie detective would be complete without a drinking problem, amirite?).
Nearly the entire film is Chris Pratt strapped to a chair with Rebecca Ferguson serving as a digital reminder of the ticking clock he has to prove his innocence. It's sort of like "12 Angry Men" but instead of an 11-against-1 jury pushing a guilty verdict, it's an AI judge who has to be swayed by the defendant, who seems extremely guilty at the beginning of the film. After all, as Raven is told, "Mercy does not make mistakes."
I must admit I'm not a fan of screenlife and "Mercy" is a perfect example as to why. It's self-restraining from a visual and storytelling perspective. It leaves performers to do more telling than showing, resulting in more artificial explanatory dialogue. And it's difficult to see the appeal of movies set to phone, computer and tablet screens when our lives are already dominated by phone, computer and tablet screens.
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Bekmambetov used to live outside the screen, directing action films like "Wanted" and "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," but perhaps he sees a market with screenlife, particularly since they come with modest budgets. The cost to make "Mercy" was likely a small fraction of Pratt-led franchises like "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Jurassic World." So from the perspectives of both Bekmambetov and Amazon MGM Studios, it's a no-brainer.
Pratt and Ferguson both do fine jobs but their talents can do so much in this format, particularly with a lukewarm screenplay from Marco van Belle. Here, they sort of just phone it in — pun intended.
Despite its decent and timely AI premise, "Mercy" is a rather forgettable sci-fi thriller whodunnit that falls into the movie slop we normally expect in January. Chris Pratt's star power isn't enough to prevent his film from receiving the death penalty.
"Mercy" is rated PG-13 for violence, bloody images, some strong language, drug content and teen smoking. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes. In theaters now.