I’m Trevor with the Sasquatch Movie Minute with a look at MERCY, directed by Timur Bekmambetov, starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson. Set in the near future, a detective is accused of murder and has to prove his innocence to an AI judge that he helped create.

 

1 out of 5

 

What the hell is this?!? I can’t think of another movie off the top of my head that has more plot holes or nonsensical reasoning than this film. The AI character makes no sense, as it shows very obvious bias and emotion. The human characters are blander than the AI. The mystery is obvious, just pick out the only semi-famous actor cast in a bit role. The 1-star is purely for the finale of the film, where it does lean into its own absurdity and creates a car chase that gleefully doubles down on its awful CGI and just goes gonzo for maximum (PG-13) carnage and hilarity.

 

Best Scene. There is a little thrill when Chris Pratt stops freaking out and actually gets down to the nuts and bolts of detective work. The thrill quickly evaporates once the logic of the crime scene gets thrown out. The director made WANTED a long time ago, the epitome of absurd zany action, and the finale car chase in this film does tap into a bit of that vein of nuttiness from WANTED.

 

Best Performance. Even though Rebecca Ferguson SHOULD be phoning this in, she still finds some shades of subtlety in her AI judge. But she is SO much better than this dreck! I hope someone does a breakdown someday of why on earth Chris Pratt moved into serious leading man roles instead of leaning into his admittedly great strength as a comedic actor. He is mind-boggingly bad as a regular guy, just like he is in JURASSIC WORLD or TERMINAL LIST. Please be funny again! And oh man, how do you waste a cool actor like Kali Reis in this! Agh!!

 

Nope, nope, don’t see this movie, avoid at all costs.