Mercy

★★☆☆

Mercy (2026)

Runtime: 99 minutes

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violence, bloody images, some strong language, drug content and teen smoking.

What if lengthy trials and endless court hearings could be replaced by a presiding judge, jury and executioner operated by Artificial Intelligence? That's a curious question to be made, but one that probably isn't a good idea, which the film Mercy eventually also demonstrates. 

Written by Marco van Belle and directed by Timur Bekmambetov, Mercy has an interesting concept and raises many questions about the nature of artificial intelligence, corruption of the judicial system, human intuition and weaves them into a time-ticking mystery where Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt), framed for the murder of his wife Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), has to uncover the true killer in 90 minutes. Which lawmaker approved of this? Anyways, it's a decent ride for the most part, despite the suffocating screenlife format, and this might be me still recovering from Ice Cube's War of the Worlds, but Pratt and Ferguson (as the AI Judge Maddox) give solid performances that make it more tolerable. Unfortunately, Mercy gets increasingly convoluted, narratively and logically, and by the time it reaches the climax, one might wonder what they're doing there too.

Since the rough framework has been laid, I'd like to dissect its logic and what I think about it. To combat increasing crime in Los Angeles, the Mercy Capital Court has implemented a new system in which an AI judge convicts and tries defendants for violent offences. They have also made it such that all devices have to be registered to the municipal cloud, allowing the defendant to assemble evidence and build their case for the judge to factually process. If they cannot provide substantial evidence to drop their guilt probability below 92% in 90 minutes, they get executed via a sonic blast. 

Now, hold on a minute. Isn't it a huge breach of privacy to force everyone to share all of their data to the cloud? This means the government basically has access to all personal data, finances, passwords and information, in which humans operating the system can exploit for their own benefit. Also, if the cloud has access to all data, doesn't that mean AI can also try processing and synthesising data too? Not only that, why 90 minutes? I get that they want to process defendants faster, but real-life cases can be more complex than what meets the eye, especially in Raven's case. Collecting evidence, narrowing down suspects, establishing possible narratives and considering motives needs much longer than this. And not to mention, evidence can be planted and rigged to point it to someone else, which would require highly intelligent, complex thinking to bypass AI logic, which we know in modern day is becoming increasingly difficult. In short, the system is corrupt. For someone wrongfully accused to be exonerated, they must have had extraordinary analytical skills like our detective to prove his innocence.

Mercy is a really difficult movie to assign a definite rating, because while the experience is harmless and sometimes even pretty decent, the narrative meat is rather forgettable and its logic gets worse the more you think about it. As usual, the screenlife format is a rather cheap move, although I understand the intention as Raven is strapped onto a chair and has to gather evidence. Him going through all the detective work and piecing the puzzle together is actually quite engaging for a bit there, even though there isn't a steady emotional current despite peeling back to his past. His partner Ray (Kenneth Choi) was killed in the line of duty, and he mentions about regretting not killing the perpetrator who was later found not guilty, therefore championing Mercy's AI judge. But his personal life also falls apart as he resorts to alcoholism and has increasingly frequent outbursts of anger. These just don't connect together that well.

The highest points are those where he challenges the judge for lacking intuition and feeling, hence there are several interesting questions. Is the implementation of the system and its constraints justified? Can humans manipulate it, and from his experience, is the system really fair, or is it merely masking corruption behind the face of justice? The latter question is raised in the climax, but the journey there is just bizarre. As mentioned, what was initially a murder mystery becomes more complicated, until it loses its way, switching tone and genre into a generic terrorist-hostage thriller. After the true killer is revealed, his motivations are uncovered, him wanting to physically and ideologically dismantle the Mercy Capitol Court for wrongfully condemning and murdering his innocent brother. Some thoughtful questions are at play here, including another reveal that Raven's friend deliberately manipulated evidence to ensure a home run and prove to everyone that the system worked. Challenging themes, they are.

Next time, just use artificial intelligence as an assistant.