Amazon’s Mercy is a generic sci-fi thriller set in an AI-led police state that uses the world’s digital footprint to gather evidence and execute justice—and how one man must prove himself innocent. The film comes with some intense moments of violence and a lot of crude language, and there’s no real positive lesson to be taken from it.
When crime skyrockets in Los Angeles far beyond record levels, government officials decide to counteract that surge by treating criminals with mercy.
Mercy Court, that is.
The artificial intelligence-controlled courtroom is designed to expedite the usually slow-moving legal system. And if its designers were honest, it’s also meant to scare the public into being law-abiding citizens.
That’s because they’ve provided the AI Judge Maddox with access to the country’s digital footprint. “She” is able to analyze camera feeds, personal phone records, body cameras and uploaded documents to reach a fact-based verdict.
Judge Maddox’s most recent verdict? That L.A. police detective Chris Raven is 97.5% guilty of murdering his wife, Nicole.
That’s how Chris ended up strapped into the very Mercy Court interrogation chair for which he had once voiced total support. As Chris struggles against the restraints, Maddox informs him that, for the next 90 minutes, he’ll have nearly unlimited access to the phones, documents or video feeds of anyone who he feels might lower his guilt threshold. If he can do that before those 90 minutes expire, there will be enough reasonable doubt to set him free.
And if he cannot procure enough evidence to decrease his guilt to 92% or lower, then he’ll be executed on the spot the moment the clock strikes zero.
Despite the limited time he has, Chris takes a moment to call his grieving daughter and comfort her.
People risk their lives to pursue truth and save others.
A man says he believes in karma. A girl jokes about hunting for a ghost. Mercy Court’s logo depicts an angel holding a sword and the scales of justice.
A teenager video messages a girl while naked in the tub (we don’t see below his chest). On a calendar in the background, we see a cartoon depiction of a woman in a revealing one-piece swimsuit. We learn a woman engaged in an affair.
In the movie’s trailer, the robe of Mercy Court’s female angelic symbol exposes one of her breasts. However, the robe appeared to be edited in the movie we saw so that it fully covered her chest.
The central crime is Nicole’s murder; we see her body on the ground with blood leaking from a stab wound.
Others die, too. Some innocent people are gruesomely run down by vehicles. When a car crash occurs, a criminal goes flying through his dashboard, meeting his end as he skids across the ground. Men and women are shot and killed. Others die in a large explosion, and we see some survivors of the initial blast burning to death. Someone gets pinned by a car.
Someone kidnaps a girl.
People fistfight. Chris gets smacked in the face with a baton and tazed.
We hear the f-word once and the s-word some 30 times. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” “tits” and “p-ss.” God’s name is used in vain 10 times, including three instances paired with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is likewise used in vain eight times.
It is revealed that Chris has a drinking problem. When the movie begins, Judge Maddox chimes that his blood alcohol content is low enough for them to start the court case. We also see him drinking in a few of the recordings he brings forth for evidence.
A plot point revolves around using chemicals to create meth. A man smokes marijuana. People drink alcohol.
It is noteworthy that some product placement occurs; Ring cameras, for instance, appear in this Amazon-distributed movie.
Mercy is the second movie released by Amazon starring a man who spends the majority of the film’s runtime staring at a screen.
The first, of course, was the terrible reimagining of War of the Worlds (Mercy’s director, Timur Bekmambetov, was a producer on that film). Fortunately, Mercy is the better of the two movies.
Still, Mercy is a rather generic sci-fi thriller that I would have pegged as a straight-to-streaming release. It begs the question, “What if AI was given authority to execute justice?” Perhaps more distressingly, the movie doesn’t seem all too interested in exploring why such a dystopian thought could be a bad idea. Rather, it seems more focused on how this could be a necessary evil. And there’s also something disconcerting about this Amazon film’s implication that purchasing one of their Ring cameras (featured in the movie) might provide the evidence needed to exonerate you. At the very least, it’s an unappreciated, underhanded product placement.
The film isn’t merciful in its content issues, either: Chris (both the actor and his like-named character) spouts plenty of profanities, including the f-word, s-word and misuses of God’s name. And violence can get intense at times, from watching some people burn to death to witnessing innocents get run down by careening vehicles.
And those issues can certainly put Mercy over plenty of families’ guilt thresholds.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
