In a time when the debate over the good and the bad of artificial intelligence is raging, we need a movie to help with the arguments. Mercy, unfortunately, is not that movie. A silly, science fiction whodunnit in which two big-name stars are limited to being in one room, talking to each other while surrounded by video clips, photos and live recordings, all played out roughly in real time. This is a movie whose idea is intriguing but whose execution is not great.

Detective Chris Raven is a cop who works alongside a new court system run by AI. Waking up from a drunken stupor, Raven finds himself facing Judge Maddox, accused of murdering his wife. He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence; otherwise, he will be executed. With a host of resources to put together the events leading to and after the murder, Raven has a race against time to find the real killer.

Imagine Agatha Christie writing a novel in which the detective is tied to a chair and the evidence is laid out before them, and yet they never leave the room. That is exactly what happens here. Raven is tied to a chair and so cannot leave the courtroom to investigate a case that could lead to his death. All he can do is use a mass of files, photos, calls, and videos that the court pulls up, so he can try to piece everything together. It’s a premise we have seen before in other online thrillers like Searching, the film in which a father tries to find his missing daughter by using Facebook and phone videos. The only difference is that in that film, we are watching from the computer screen. Here the images come flying into Raven’s face.

I don’t think I am giving any spoilers away by saying we know the accused isn’t guilty. What we have to watch is a man spending his time almost guessing what has happened, with an AI Judge reminding him that he has to be under 90% guilty to escape execution. So Raven digs deep into phone records and gets his partner to track down those who may or may not have information. It’s all very much in your face and thrown at the speed of sound, yet often contrived and implausible.

Yet as the evidence mounts up and Raven starts singularling people out, the question of whether a court should be run by AI is never answered. Judge Maddox wants facts, not hunches, and yet that’s all Raven has, and he manages to stumble his way through putting the pieces together in a case that would probably take weeks, months, even years, yet he manages it in 90 minutes.

The set pieces are often effective enough, but most of the film is the two leads looking at each other and never allowing them to fully connect. Director Timur Bekmambetov, whose career is somewhat chequered, from the decent Night Watch and Day Watch, to the dire remake of Ben-Hur, throws enough energy into the film to make it mildly gripping if you can ignore the huge holes in the plot and the even worse shaky camera work.

What is worse is how much he wasted the talents of the two leads. Chris Pratt, who has struggled to find a decent project after Guardians of the Galaxy, at least gets to get out of his chair in scenes from the video clips, but most of the time, he is limited to facial expressions that show him looking shocked. Even worse is Rebecca Ferguson, who has to pretend to be almost robotic as the AI Judge and delivers everything in the same artificial vocal tones, knowing just how much she can deliver when given the right script.

Mercy is a mess of a film that never gets to the bottom of the AI argument, treating it merely as a McGuffin to liven up a murder mystery. Considering the film was made in 2024 and has been sitting on the shelf all this time, it seems to have missed the points of the modern argument. As a piece of fluff sci-fi thriller, it’s fine, but that’s about it and won’t be remembered in a couple of weeks’ time.

2 out of 5

Director: Timur Bekmambetov

Starring: Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Annabelle Wallis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Jeff Pierre, Rafi Gavron

Written by: Marco van Belle

Running Time: 100 mins

Cert: 12A

Release date: 23rd January 2026