Mercy

Last night my nephew and I went to see Mercy and, while it is not a good movie, it is definitely not as bad as I thought it would be based on the reviews.  In a dystopian future where Los Angeles is overridden with violent crime, LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is instrumental in creating the Mercy Capital Court where AI is used as judge, jury, and executioner for the worst offenders.  However, he is soon *ahem* at the mercy of his own creation when he is accused of killing his wife Nicole (Annabelle Wallis) and put on trial by AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson).  He is restrained and given 90 minutes to prove his innocence below a 92% guilt probability threshold or he will be executed on the spot.  He has access to the Ministry Cloud, which includes surveillance footage from all over the city and the social media accounts of every citizen, in order to prove his innocence.  He also has the opportunity to communicate with anyone able to provide evidence, including his daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers), his AA sponsor Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan), and his partner Jacqueline "Jaq" Diallo (Kali Reis).  Will he be able to solve the mystery of his wife's death before time runs out?  I initially wanted to see this because it seemed like a cautionary tale about the dangers of giving AI too much power, which it is to a certain extent, but then this message becomes muddled in the third act and it really weakens the narrative.  Both Pratt and Ferguson give incredibly bland performances because they are both stuck in a static location and all we see are close-ups of their faces for most of the runtime (Pratt can be good but, in my opinion, his best performances involve physical comedy so this is beyond his abilities).  Having said that, I did enjoy the use of the screenlife genre in the storytelling (I am a fan of Missing, Profile, and Searching) because this footage adds immediacy and tension, especially the clock counting down in real time.  I found the mystery to be compelling, even though the investigation is extremely convenient in order to happen during the time limit imposed by the narrative, and I was fully engaged until the action becomes a bit unwieldy in the final moments.  I didn't hate this but it probably should have gone straight to streaming.