Cinema has always loved a ticking clock. Usually, that clock is attached to a bundle of dynamite or a hijacked subway car. In Mercy (2026), the newest offering from director Timur Bekmambetov, the ticking clock is attached to a percentage. Specifically, a “Guilt Probability” percentage that Detective Chris Raven needs to lower before a digital gavel drops.
It is an intriguing premise. High-concept. Economical. It’s also, unfortunately, about as exciting as watching a progress bar reach 100% on a Windows update.
Chris Pratt stars as Raven, a man who has traded his galaxy-saving smirk for the weary, bloodshot eyes of a “wrongly accused” archetype we’ve seen in everything from The Fugitive to Pratt’s own The Terminal List. This time, he isn’t running from Tommy Lee Jones; he’s sitting in a chair, arguing with an algorithm. It is a bold choice for a lead actor whose primary asset is kinetic energy. It is an even bolder choice for a director who once made a movie where bullets curved around corners.
The Trial of the Century (Or at Least the Afternoon)
The year is 2029. Los Angeles is less Blade Runner and more “slightly more expensive surveillance state.” The judicial system has been replaced by the Mercy Court, an AI-driven platform that promises objective justice without the messy interference of human bias or, apparently, human defense attorneys.
Raven is accused of murdering his wife. The AI, voiced with chilling, antiseptic precision by Rebecca Ferguson (long after the operatic solemnity of the Dune franchise), has determined he is 96% guilty based on a cocktail of biometric data, social media history, and drone footage. He has 90 minutes: the literal runtime of the film: to bring that number down to 92% or face immediate execution.
The “Screenlife” format is Bekmambetov’s signature. He’s been trying to make us look at digital interfaces as a primary narrative tool for years (see: Unfriended, Searching, Profile). In Mercy, this means the screen is a cluttered mosaic of body-cam feeds, thermal imaging, and a constantly fluctuating GUI. It’s meant to feel immersive. It’s meant to feel urgent.
It feels like having forty browser tabs open while someone screams at you in a robotic voice.
Chris Pratt: The Stationary Protagonist
Chris Pratt is an actor who thrives on movement. He is at his best when he is dodging dinosaurs or dancing to 70s pop. In Mercy, he is effectively strapped to a chair for the majority of the film.
Cast against type as a dour, alcoholic detective with a tragic past (is there any other kind?), Pratt struggles to find the frequency. Without his charm to fall back on, we are left with a performance that consists mostly of heavy breathing and staring intensely at off-screen monitors. He is trying for “gritty desperation.” He lands somewhere closer to “man trying to remember his Netflix password.”
There is a version of this movie where the physical restriction of the lead creates a Hitchcockian tension. Rear Window but with an iPad. But Mercy isn’t interested in the nuances of a restricted performance. It keeps trying to break out of its own cage. We get flashbacks that feel like perfume commercials and B-plots involving the “real” killers that are so thinly sketched they barely register as human beings.
The script asks Pratt to do the heavy lifting of a redemption arc while his character is physically incapable of lifting anything. It’s a mismatch of actor and intent. It’s the cinematic equivalent of hiring a world-class sprinter to compete in a game of musical chairs.
The AI Judge: Siri with a Death Warrant
Rebecca Ferguson is the silver lining here, though it’s a thin one. She plays Judge Maddox, the AI program overseeing the trial. Or rather, she provides the voice and a static digital avatar.
It is a thankless role. Ferguson is reduced to a “talking head,” quite literally. Her performance is a feat of vocal control: emotionless, logical, and utterly devoid of the warmth that makes Ferguson one of our best working actors. The film wants us to fear the cold logic of the machine, but it ends up making a more compelling case for the AI than the protagonist. At least the AI is consistent.
The dynamic between Raven and Maddox is meant to be a high-stakes debate about the nature of truth and the fallibility of data. Instead, it plays out like a customer service call from hell. Raven shouts “I didn’t do it!” and Maddox responds with “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that. Did you mean: I am a murderer?” It is less Minority Report and more The Running Man by way of a glitchy iPhone.
Visuals and the Bekmambetov Blur
Bekmambetov has always been a maximalist. In the mid-2000s, his films were a riot of slow-motion debris and impossible physics. Now, his maximalism has moved to the desktop.
Mercy is visually “busy” without being visually “interesting.” The screen is constantly filled with data points that the audience cannot possibly read, serving as a placeholder for actual world-building. We are told the world is a dystopian nightmare, but all we see are really nice high-definition drone shots of a slightly grayer Los Angeles.
There is a disconnect between the “Screenlife” gimmick and the story being told. In Searching, the format worked because the story was about a man using the internet to find his daughter. The format was the story. In Mercy, the format feels like a budget-saving measure disguised as an aesthetic choice. We are watching a high-stakes thriller through the lens of a Zoom call, and the lag is starting to show.
The 18% Question: Is It Really That Bad?
The early critical consensus: a dismal 18% on Rotten Tomatoes: suggests a disaster. Is it?
Not entirely. There is a kernel of a great idea here. The film’s exploration of “automated justice” is timely, especially in an era where algorithms decide what we eat, who we date, and what news we see. The screenplay raises legitimately disturbing questions about the lack of privacy in a world where every doorbell is a camera and every phone is a witness.
But Mercy isn’t interested in being a philosophical treatise. It wants to be a “buddy-cop” movie where one of the cops is a mainframe. The third act collapses into a series of twists that are simultaneously predictable and nonsensical. Characters act against their own interests solely to keep the plot moving toward a conclusion that feels hollow and unearned.
The “silver lining” is that the film is undeniably brisk. At 90 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It arrives, yells at you for an hour and a half, and then leaves without cleaning up. It’s perfect for the “streaming age”: something to put on in the background while you scroll through the very apps the movie is warning you about.
Final Verdict: A System Error
Mercy is a film that trades depth for velocity and ends up with neither. It wastes a talented cast on a premise that it doesn’t have the courage to fully explore.
Chris Pratt is fine, but miscast. Rebecca Ferguson is excellent, but invisible. Timur Bekmambetov is innovative, but repetitive. It is a movie that feels assembled by an algorithm rather than written by a human. It knows all the beats of a thriller, but it doesn’t understand the heart.
In the end, Mercy fails its own test. It asks us to judge a man based on the data provided. The data says this is a mediocre thriller that isn’t worth the bandwidth. My guilt probability regarding this review? 100%.
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