Between last year’s War of the Worlds and this year’s Mercy, Amazon seems oddly committed to a very specific concept: put a major movie star in front of a computer screen and have them argue with it for 90 minutes. Based on these two films, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that this setup simply doesn’t work as a feature-length experience. Director Timur Bekmambetov (Wanted) does his best to inject energy into the material, but you can practically feel Mercy getting dumber by the minute.
That’s unfortunate, because the core idea is actually pretty compelling. Chris Pratt stars as Chris Raven, an LAPD detective accused of murdering his wife—a crime he has no memory of committing. In this near-future society, the justice system has been replaced by an AI-driven court that acts as judge, jury, and executioner. Ironically, it’s a system Raven himself helped create. Now strapped into a chair and staring at a massive monitor, he has 90 minutes to convince the AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) that he’s innocent. To do so, he’s granted access to a vast digital cloud containing virtually every piece of data generated by the population.
Initially, the film shows some promise. Raven pores over doorbell camera footage, digs through his wife’s phone records, and has his partner guide him through the crime scene remotely. For a short while, this digital sleuthing is mildly engaging. Before long, though, the repetition sets in. Watching Raven click through files and windows becomes monotonous, no matter how aggressively Bekmambetov fills the screen with pop-ups and visual clutter.
A bigger issue is that Pratt and Ferguson never truly share the screen. They were filmed separately, and the lack of chemistry is impossible to ignore. Pratt overacts from his chair, desperately trying to sell Raven’s panic and frustration, while Ferguson delivers her lines with the cold neutrality expected of an AI. Individually, their performances are fine, but together they generate zero spark, making their extended back-and-forth feel tedious rather than tense.
In the final act, Mercy attempts to shake things up by morphing into a full-blown action movie. Unfortunately, the action still unfolds entirely on screens. Raven remains seated, watching events through security feeds and TV news footage as chaos erupts elsewhere. This creates an emotional and visual distance that drains the excitement from what should be the film’s most intense moments. Scenes involving what appears to be a flying police motorcycle push the movie into unintentionally silly territory.
The screenlife approach might have worked if Mercy were built around a strong mystery. It isn’t. A sprawling conspiracy underpins the plot, but Marco van Belle’s script takes increasingly absurd turns to justify it. The climax hinges on a painfully contrived twist that borders on parody, while the rest of the story leans heavily on tired clichés about secret villains and hidden agendas. It’s Screenwriting 101 at its laziest.
If there’s one genuine positive, it’s Rebecca Ferguson’s performance. She’s completely convincing as an AI-generated judge—which is both a compliment and a slightly backhanded one. In the end, Mercy feels like someone fed Minority Report into an algorithm and asked it to spit out a bargain-basement imitation. For viewers scrolling through reviews or browsing sci-fi thrillers associated with Flixtor full movies, this is one future you’re better off avoiding.
