If you like a ridiculous whodunit that implements surveillance, social media, drones and video calls for the majority of the film, stay tuned. The other remaining 10 percent revolves around Chris Pratt’s Chris Raven, secured to a chair, investigating and pleading his case to a screen, as he is accused of murdering his wife, with only 90 minutes to prove his innocence. Interested?
The film is heavily promoted as an IMAX 3D experience but i saw it in a standard 2D screening. Chris Pratt is primarily acting against no one, starring primarily directly at the camera and stating his case. He is giving a reasonable perspective for someone so involved with the program of Mercy, only to have it turned against him. Rebecca Ferguson as the AI judge, jury and executioner, Judge Maddox, plays the role realistically, straight and deadpan compared to the truth of the state of today’s world. While the film takes place several years in the future and portrays AI in a relatively positive light, it still proposes that neither humans nor technology is perfect.
For a 100-minute film, where 90 minutes of it takes place while secured to essentially an electric chair waiting for the timer to run out, MERCY offers a fascinating experience that isn’t as adrenalin–based as the trailers make it out to be. Whilst the intensity may wane from the pace, the film never wavers in its interest in the mystery unfolding. One of the biggest flaws of the film however is the fact that there aren’t a ton of actors in the film, which limits the number of possibilities in terms of suspects outside of the obvious man in the chair, front and centre. It’s not far from the reality we face today, the Mercy program is an interesting proposal of what if we relied on technology to quickly and effectively provide a verdict. Everyone is presumed guilty until confirmed otherwise. If you can get passed the overtly serious tone, the film is truly captivating, so if not absurd, mystery that is both entertaining and simultaneously horrifying.
Its a clever idea to place AI in charge of our justice system via a system entitled Mercy that culls together the facts of a case via computer files, close circuit video surveillance, time lines, bank records, phone records, and any other data that can either free someone arrested for a crime or slamming the prison door shut on them forever. Hell, it would save the state money by instantly killing the defendant in the chair they’re strapped to if one is found guilty of a capital crime. J
Justice is swift and brutal here as it eliminates drawn-out calenders, plea deals, or even appeals. It’s certainly more of a brazen now world than a brave one. But of-course, as necessary in such a thriller, the AI system required to be perfect and just is far from it ultimately it will take some good, old-fashioned human ingenuity to make up for the bugs in the system. In this case its detective Raven, who as the film projects him as a drunken lout, bellowing his innocence, but soon he will gather his wits, and appeal to prove to the cool, implacable AI judge, that he is a good egg.
There’s an obvious lesson that the movie overlooked– that AI, like any computer programming, is only as good as the people who program it– a thought overlooked by screen writer Marco van Belle and director Timur Bekambetov who seem content merely to mock technology, the film suggesting that a beleaguered society is all in on this radical experiment in law enforcement without alternate counterpoints. As it goes, detective Raven, starts running rings around the Mercy system, with his instinct for right and wrong despite where the evidence appears to point. What I find frustrating about this movie are the myriads of cliches and plot holes glaringly evident in its thinly conceived mystery. To add insult to injury the film overshoots every scene with its heavy editing. Pratt and Ferguson do what they can with the static roles.
