PREVENIENT GRACE
Wow, now that was intense, a real increased blood circulation of a movie. Yeah I'm talking about Mercy, the type of cutthroat, sci-fi thriller that takes a scene or two from 2002's Minority Report and stretches it out to a little over 100 minutes. Mercy, well it's mostly a screenlife affair, initially a drag but eventually becoming a consuming ride. "I loved my wife, I didn't hurt her." Prove it bro. Prove it Pratt man.
Anyway Mercy has Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) on trial for murdering his wife. Here's the glitch: he has to sit in an execution-style chair, be presided over by an AI judge, and sift through a bunch of found footage to prove his innocence. If he can't do so in an hour and a half, he'll be offed for sure. Yikes!
Pratt, well he plays the character of Raven with a raw potency, a glint of hope, and an antihero jetlag. Heck, he looks like he hasn't slept in days. You root for him because well, you have to, not because you want to. Otherwise there'd be no film, no supposed leading light to keep alive.
Mercy, yup it's the ultimate "big brother" flick, the ultimate social media boon, and the ultimate, brash whodunit. Everybody is watching everybody, every movement dissected like an Energizer Bunny telescope, every surveillance video a cumulus "cloud" (natch).
Co-starring Rebecca Ferguson and Chris Sullivan and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing, Mercy revels in the fact that it's akin to a modern day Zapruder film with director Timur Bekmambetov getting his tech on as he chills on the grassy knoll. The pic does what most pics do well. It gets your heart rate up, it's twisty, it renders you restive, and it keeps you on the edge of your proverbial seat. Errand of "mercy".
Written by Jesse Burleson
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