Mercy: Movie Review

Cast: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Annabelle Wallis
Director: Timur Bekhmambetov

In a near-future, justice has taken a new form.

Faced with spiralling crime and an increasing need to see punishment doled out, those in charge have brought in an AI judge (Silo's Ferguson) to help.

But when officer Chris Ravens (Pratt) finds himself accused of the murder of his own wife, he's hauled up before her.

Now, with time running out, he must clear his name within 90 minutes - or be executed by the very system he created.

There's s kernel of a good idea here - a real-time story in which a man fights for his life against a system he created and with his own injustices laid bare. Unfortunately, what emerges appears to be a mixture of 24 meets reality show Cops, as a series of previous encounters via various tech from the cloud or video feeds to officers within the field reveals the reality of Pratt's character's sins.

As digital tech unfurls around the largely static Pratt, the acting limitations become clear. Whereas Ferguson is content to use subtle twitches or sly smiles to show how this case is creating a degree of humanity in her, the final act's desire to make her fully human feels like a leap too quick and too far.

And for Pratt himself, being largely confined to a chair doesn't quite help him hit the mark. Usually an a actor who's blessed with physicality for a performance, the gaps here begin to show. Even the presence of True Detective: Night Country's Kali Reis as Raven's partner doesn't elevate proceedings.

Bekhmambetov has previously been involved in the likes of static films such as Searching and Unfriended and there's much the same MO at work here - but the end results actually leave the audience pleading for Mercy, rather than feeling blessed it's only 100 minutes long.