Director Timur Bekmambetov (NIGHTWATCH, WANTED) creates an interesting remix of the found footage movie with a sci-fi bent that remixes MINORITY REPORT by way of THE PURGE.
MERCY (2026)
★★ OF ★★★★★ stars
It’s not a leap to say that most found footage movies are low budget plodding affairs designed to make budget issues seem like an aesthetic choice. The modern version of these are called screen life films – movies that largely feature someone commenting on the plot while looking at a computer screen or talking to other characters with FaceTime or similar screen sharing technologies. When I heard that MERCY was in this vein of films, I was apprehensive but MERCY bucks the trend by presenting an engaging who-done-it mystery at its core and setting the countdown in real time to give it a sense of urgency to suck you in.
MERCY follows detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) a cop who has been arrested for the murder of his wife (Annabelle Wallis) and is being tried in the LA Mercy Court. In this alternate world’s future, crime in LA has skyrocketed to Escape from New York/Purge levels and capital crimes are tried by an AI judge to keep the populace in line in a world where privacy doesn’t exist and every camera and smart phone is a weapon to potentially use against you in court- if your probably of guilt is over 97.5% you’re automatically executed.
Raven has been a zealous advocate for the Mercy program and finds himself shocked to be tried for a murder he doesn’t remember committing before the AI judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Using realtime access to the cameras and technology, Raven has to try to prove his innocence – but being tried in the Mercy court already prejudices him against his daughter and even his AA sponsor Rob (Chris Sullivan) struggles to help him find an alibi. Could Raven be guilty of a crime he can’t possibly have committed?
If all this sounds a bit like Minority Report, the 90s Spielberg movie with Tom Cruise as the advocate of a futuristic law enforcement directive who finds himself tried by it with one of its pillars as the only one who can set him free, that’s because it is very much like it. There’s more than a few leaps in logic here to get to this point in the very near future and some plot aspects that just don’t really make sense. But much like 90s movies where action heroes ruled, MERCY asks you to brush that aside cuz it gets in the way of the movie’s answers and the procedural mystery. This very much hooks you in like a TV procedural meets COPS and it’s to Bekmambetov’s credit that a movie that largely has Chris Pratt looking at screens in a Chair seems as intense and locks you in place as MERCY does. It’s a popcorn thrill ride and I’m here for it.
MERCY hits theaters on January 23rd
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VIDEO REVIEW