Amazon MGM Studios
Director Timur Bekmambetov’s film “Mercy” (you can read our not-so-flattering review here) takes place in a near-future Los Angeles during a massive uptick in crime and homelessness. There is a meth epidemic, and hundreds of people now live in tents up and down Hollywood Boulevard. As a deterrent, the LAPD has installed a new A.I.-driven justice system called Mercy, which has expedited the previously lugubrious process of convicting and executing (!) criminals. Mercy is activated when a criminal is taken off the streets and strapped into a chair in a giant A.I. chamber. A virtual judge named Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) then gives the criminal 90 minutes to plead their case. If the odds of their guilt still tops 96% at the end of those 90 minutes, Mercy kills them.
This system has been in place for a few years by the events of “Mercy,” spelling out a grim dystopia. The premise might have one believe that “Mercy” is a dark warning for champions of A.I. At some point, we’re going to become so complacent and unconcerned about societal issues that we’re going to outsource our entire criminal justice system to an unfeeling, by-the-numbers machine. On paper, “Mercy” should have a similar vibe to Paul Verhoeven’s “RoboCop,” a violent satire about a police force that had been privatized by a money-grubbing corporation.
But in practice, “Mercy” is the opposite of “RoboCop.” It’s like if the OCP corporation from “RoboCop” got to make a movie about how great it was. “Mercy” argues that A.I. is an expected and natural tool that will be put into place soon enough. If it has any flaws, it’s just because we humans haven’t trained it well enough yet. Given that the film was produced by Amazon, “Mercy” comes across as corporate propaganda of the worst kind.
Mercy is little more than corporate propaganda
Amazon MGM Studios
And make no mistake, “Mercy” is dull to look at by any measure. The plot revolves around Chris Raven (Chris Pratt), an LAPD detective who awakens in the Mercy machine, only just then learning that he sits accused of killing his wife. As his 90-minute clock begins to tick down, Raven begins scouring through camera footage, personal phone calls, personal back records, and peeping tom spy drones to find out the truth. As a director, Timur Bekmambetov tries to make this process seem visually dynamic by placing the camera footage in a glowing array of floating screens around Chris Raven’s head (and shot in 3-D IMAX no less), but in actuality, it’s not much different than watching the 2025 “War of the Worlds” film, wherein the entire picture takes place on laptop windows. (Bekmambetov, tellingly, produced that movie as well.) Nevertheless, one cannot forget the fact that “Mercy” is a film about a guy making a bunch of phone calls while strapped to a chair.
But more so, “Mercy” has a bleakly irresponsible attitude about cooperating with A.I. At the end of the film, Raven explains that, as a cop, he has to trust his instincts, which is something he can’t explain to a machine. However, rather than leaning into a human’s natural abilities to understand laws and have, y’know, a sense of ethics, “Mercy” gives way to a sermon about how A.I. can be taught to think like us, even if it’s been installed to execute our citizens without remorse. By the end of the film, Raven and the A.I. Maddox have, infuriatingly, become friends. Raven actually says that “human or A.I., we all make mistakes.”
We all need, it seems, just to learn to humanize and respect the corporate-owned execution bots.
Mercy also hates the Fourth Amendment
Amazon MGM
And on top of all the irresponsible messaging, there’s even more irresponsible messaging. I mentioned that Chris Raven, during his attempts to clear his name, is given free and open access to all the phones, Ring-brand doorbell cameras, and personal videos of anyone he wants. Mercy can then extrapolate holodeck-like 3-D environments out of them, allowing Chris to live inside crime scenes. Personal privacy is nonexistent in the world of “Mercy.” Indeed, it’s explained early in the film that all citizens have been required by law to link their phones to a police surveillance network. Mercy cannot operate unless it has all your personal data. The idea of the Fourth Amendment is quaint in the world of “Mercy.”
This is another dystopian aspect of Timur Bekmambetov’s film that is not only glossed over but kind of celebrated. Raven never really raises any serious complaints about the Mercy computer having access to his personal videos, including fights he had with his wife or the drinking he was doing in secret. Instead, it presents his ability to comb through other people’s data as cool and heroic. He puts together that his wife may have been having an affair, and immediately sics his fellow LAPD officers on the guy. The man is a Black chef who works downtown, and it’s a little bleak watching the LAPD chase and detain an innocent Black man and then be expected to cheer their efforts.
Everything is gross and backward in “Mercy.” It’s an Amazon-owned product that wants me to love A.I., worship the cops, and hate my own privacy. We can perhaps take some comfort, anyway, in the fact that “Mercy” is being released in January, and that no one will see this piece of crap.
