{"id":51529,"date":"2026-01-28T19:01:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:01:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=51529"},"modified":"2026-01-29T23:50:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T04:50:00","slug":"mercy-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/28\/mercy-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercy [2026]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A cop accused of murder has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to an AI judge in Timur Bekmambetov’s painfully bad Mercy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chris Raven, played by Chris Pratt, wakes up with a hangover and a harrowing task: prove his innocence for his wife\u2019s murder in 90 minutes or die. Mercy is a court system AI, played by Rebecca Ferguson, wherein the accused pores through everyone\u2019s cellphones, emails, and a few calls to others (let\u2019s hope they are home, we know they aren\u2019t hanging out Who Wants to be\u00a0 Millionaire style) to convince the AI there\u2019s a reasonable doubt. Thus begins Timur Bekmambetov\u2019s mind-bogglingly dumb Mercy. Be prepared, I\u2019m going to go deep into the terrible script, but still trying to avoid direct spoilers, and ideas that got this film made. How anyone read this script and said \u201cyeah, spend 60 million dollars on this is beyond me. Yes, a rant-view, but it must be done.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mercy dies by the failure of its premise. The script, by Marco Van Belle, puts the audience in a Phillip K. Dick sort of scenario, a sci-fi overreach of power. Yes, it\u2019s a bit of the point where the system is flawed. But the actual setup we\u2019re meant to believe has been accepted is so ludicrous, it can\u2019t pass suspension of belief muster.\u00a0 It cracks immediately, leaving the remaining 90 minutes a collection of \u201creally?<\/span><\/p>\n

Shoving someone, unprepared, into a murder chair and telling them they have 90 minutes to drop their \u201cguilty percentage\u201d to 92% (Pratt starts at 97.5) is instantly suspect.\u00a0 To prove their innocence, they have to find evidence on the fly, given access to the \u201ccommunity grid.\u201d\u00a0 In this future, everything everyone does is legally required to be backed up ot the cloud at all times. Surveillance state is cool, and everyone\u2019s alright with it, I guess.\u00a0 Lucky he\u2019s a cop with resources at his disposal and knows how things work. Heck, he\u2019s personally sent several people into the Mercy court.\u00a0 A layperson dropped in? Never. Not to mention, the onus is on the accused, not the prosecution, to prove it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting concept, and there are so many kangaroo courts, trials with little evidence, and we all know of the two-level justice system, and its massive flaws in real life. But Mercy asks us to go along with an arrest and quick trial when, sigh, the murder scene is still being processed. Police are all over the house, collecting evidence. Not even a quick cover-up or the like. Just \u201chey, the broken Ring camera that doesn’t\u2019 show him come into the house noted he was there just before the murder,\u201d and some blood on his suit (a mere trace after a violent stabbing), and his fingerprints at the scene. Gasp, fingerprints of his\u2026 in his own house? So it\u2019s OBVIOUSLY him. But yes, any rudimentary investigation, such as the quickened version Raven performs in 90 minutes, would reveal cracks in the case instantaneously, ending the film. When the film presented a reasonable doubt within minutes, it couldn\u2019t sustain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Over two years, the Mercy system has reportedly been successfully executed 18 times. Apparently, this has dropped the crime rate by 68%.\u00a0 To note: the death penalty is not a deterrent. There is little that actually deters crime except providing the resources at a basic Sorry folks of a certain thought: the poor aren’t automatically criminals for being poor. This falls into the Purge mindset of crime: violent crime is the only crime, and is done by terrible people who can\u2019t wait to do it when given license to act out against their fellow man. For, apparently, this high-crime LA has also gathered up all the criminals and tossed them into lawless red zones, of continual violence and riots? The first Mercy case seemed to occur in one of these, where murder would be continual from what we see. In that case, if the first Mercy case, would never make muster to get a second. In one of the \u201cReally?\u201d moments, a \u201cRed zone\u201d that has working, decent hotels because the characters need to be at one.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I refuse to believe the courts in LA have only used this system once a month; we all know perfectly well they\u2019d toss anyone in there and call it a day. It\u2019s the same issue as the Purge, we all know crime won\u2019t vanish because people have a strange desire: whether it be allowed ot do crime for 12 hours or this weird ass court proceeding, one which apparently has no humans watching or going through it at all, except social media polls? But people observing the actual trial? Nah, because if we did, it can\u2019t continue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Awful trusting of the AI. We know how often AI is wrong in real life. Toss a simple question in Google and get nonsense back.\u00a0 Although it\u2019s handwaved in the movie, \u201cAI and humans make mistakes, shrug\u201d\u00a0 like railroading someone in an unbalanced system is the same as spilling the milk at breakfast. No doubt, Mercy is pro-surveillance, pro-compiling of data, and pro-police. It briefly mentions, then drops, the idea that Mercy may have miscarried justice before. Mostly, part of the plot is based on a previous trial (with heavyhanded set up, it’s no surprise), but it\u2019s still attributed to humans deliberately acting in a specific way, which ruins the case for Mercy even more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking of the plotting? It\u2019s insulting. The villain? Instantly pointed at as \u201cthat\u2019s our guilty party.\u201d The plan? It makes zero sense. It makes even less sense when explained further.\u00a0 How it flows, and the connection made to get the truth and move the plot, are tenuous at best, highly coincidental otherwise.\u00a0<\/span>\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s not all for loss. So many times, it\u2019s unintentionally hilarious how Bekmambetov films and presents the images. The sheer incredulity of the events caused so amny in my theatre to raise their hands in \u201cWTF, mate?\u201d\u00a0 The lines from Van Belle\u2019s script that the characters have to say, partially Chris Sullivan, as Raven\u2019s sponsor and his wife\u2019s coworker, and Kylie Rogers as the daughter. Cringe. At least the film has enough mercy (heh) on us to use the 90-minute timer to keep a countdown of how much remains right there on the screen. No need to check the watch with each sigh. In non-snark: there are a few interesting moments in the presentation of the screenlife scenario. A few moments of the never-ending camera movement present a holodeck setup, surrounding Raven. But they\u2019re fleeting, mostly watching Pratt watch screens and yell at people.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chris Pratt is not a good dramatic actor. As much as I have issues with him as a person, he does a great comedic performance. Actually trying to emote? Not so much. Mercy is 100 minutes of Pratt strapped to a chair, trying so hard to display as many emotions as possible and failing.\u00a0 Rebecca Ferguson can barely muster any interest. If you told me she filmed her parts between set-ups on Dune Messiah in front of a green screen, I\u2019d believe you. She\u2019s 100% checked out. Sure, she\u2019s playing an AI, but there\u2019s a big difference between playing a character who speaks flatly and robotically and a whole performance. It\u2019s such an oddity, even in not-so-good things, she\u2019s often the highlight. Not here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As noted, I cannot get over the quickness to execute the man. We review the movie we have, not what we think it should be, but this film could work in a 12 Angry Men sort of situation, with Juror 8 also being the accused. The case is done, execution is looming, and it\u2019s a last-ditch appeal to prove it. But of course, if that way we wouldn\u2019t have the active rush of all the pieces moving in real time. But at least it would solve the biggest, glariingest issue.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mercy is a total mess, failing in concept and in execution. One can ignore glaring flaws; other issues work, but it all falls flat on its face. Inane direction from Timur Bekmambetov, terrible writing by Marco van Belle, and bad performances. The only respite is the occasional laughs within the sighs. Provide Mecy on yourself, and skip this film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cop accused of murder has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to an AI judge in Timur Bekmambetov’s painfully bad Mercy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[302,1458,1087],"class_list":["post-51529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-drama","tag-sci-fi","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51529"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51538,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51529\/revisions\/51538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}