‘Mercy’ Review: Chris Pratt & Rebecca Ferguson in AI Thriller

Filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov seems determined to make us look at screens when we go to the movies. Several of his films, including Unfriended, Searching and Profile (he produced the first two and directed the third), helped popularize the trend of so-called “screenlife” movies, in which the action is shown entirely via screens of one type or another. He branches out a little with his latest effort starring Chris Pratt as a man on trial for the alleged murder of his wife, with his fate to be decided by an artificial intelligence judge. Unfortunately, Mercy still contains so much footage shot from the perspective of doorbell cams, body cameras, drone cameras, iPhones, etc., that it should be avoided by anyone suffering from screen addiction. Which these days is pretty much everybody.

The press notes gush lavishly about how future-forward this approach is, but the reality is that everything old is new again. Just check out Sidney Lumet’s terrific 1971 thriller The Anderson Tapes, in which much of the story was similarly related via surveillance footage of one kind or another. But Lumet had the grace to give us something to look at besides that.

Bekmambetov does here as well, but what he mostly gives us is Pratt strapped to a chair for much of the film’s running time as his character, Chris Raven, desperately attempts to prove his innocence to the impassive Judge Maddox. Maddox, played by Rebecca Ferguson in appropriately poker-face fashion, is an AI creation, one that Raven formerly championed as a police detective in a Los Angeles that has become hopelessly crime-ridden. The film is set in 2029, a mere three years from now, demonstrating both an optimism about the potentiality of AI and a pessimism about the city’s trajectory.

Raven wakes up after an alcohol-fueled blackout in the “Mercy Chair,” which conveniently features an attachment capable of instantly killing him if he’s found guilty. He doesn’t remember anything that happened the morning before, when he supposedly killed his wife (Annabelle Wallis), but he has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to the unyielding AI judge, who has access to all the video footage in the cloud to either support or counter his arguments.

Like a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Milliionaire?, Raven has opportunities to phone his friends (via video screens, naturally). He reaches out to his teenage daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers, Yellowstone) to proclaim his innocence; to his A.A. sponsor and friend Rob (Chris Sullivan, This Is Us) in search of answers; and to his police partner Jaq (Kali Reis, True Detective Night Country) to help track down the real murderer. It’s eventually revealed that his wife has been having an affair, which unfortunately only provides a motive for him having killed her.

The constant use of low-res footage quickly proves wearisome, with the film’s three credited editors working their damnedest to make it all look dynamic. Toward the end, Mercy does feature a very well-orchestrated, exciting truck-and-car chase through the streets of Los Angeles, which feels like eating a nice sugary desert after a bland meal.

While Pratt can be effective in the right vehicle (Jurassic World, Guardians of the Galaxy), he’s very dependent on his athletic physicality. Watching him as he sits motionless in a chair for nearly 90 minutes, not able to resort to the humor with which he often peppers his performances, mainly serves as a demonstration of his limitations as an actor. Ferguson comes off much better, especially when she subtly reveals the hints of emotionality that begin to seep into her character’s data-driven persona.  

Taking place in real time, Mercy mercifully moves along fairly briskly. But after it’s over you’ll definitely feel the need for a digital detox.