Dallas Film Now.

Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson star in an action thriller, directed by Timur Bekmambetov. 
Starting at a boil, Timur Bekmambetov’s Mercy has nowhere to go but over the top. And that’s where it proceeds, early and often, throughout its 100-minute running time. 

In Marco van Belle’s original screenplay, Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is a police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department who sits before an A.I. judge, locked in a chair in an otherwise empty room, ready to be filled with a dazzling array of screens — computer screens, cell phone screens, security camera screeners — you name the screen, they got it. 

Told largely, though not exclusively, through the screens — making this a Screenlife-adjacent production — the story of Mercy begins on the morning after the murder of Chris Raven’s wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis). Chris Raven has been arrested because A.I. determined that a preponderance of evidence points to him as the guilty party, and he has just 90 minutes to prove his innocence or else he will be executed on the spot. 

The film’s prologue explains that the Mercy Court was established in the face of relentless violence throughout Los Angeles, and is empowered to act as judge, jury, and executioner, though why defendants only have 90 minutes to argue their innocence is never explained. It’s also hard to see how the threat of the merciless Mercy Court has proven to be much of a deterrent to crime in the city, since all the criminals have been relegated to lawless ‘red zones’ where they constantly riot … against themselves, I suppose? 

That, too, is never explained. But no matter; we only have 90 minutes before Chris Pratt gets electrocuted!

He wastes precious minutes whining and crying like he’s just lost a professional football play-off game — sorry, Josh Allen! — before buckling down and using his investigative skills to whip through a multiplicity of screens in search of something that will or could exonerate him, all while Judge Judy — sorry, Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) — glares at him with an inhuman, coldly precise facial expression plastered on her screen. 

His police partner, JAQ (Kali Reis), tries to help by zipping around the city on her heli-jet, searching for clues and interviewing/bullying witnesses on his behalf. Since Chris Raven is an alcoholic and was apprehended in a bar, lost in morning drinking, he contacts his sponsor, Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan) for a friendly face, only for Rob to shake his head in disappointment and wish him a speedy death. 

Chris Raven’s past is excavated by Judge Maddox, exposing that excessive guilt over his former police partner’s death tipped him into alcoholism, which is what also tipped his marriage to the breaking point, to his sobbing recall and the sobbing disappointment of his teenage daughter, Britt (Kyle Rogers), who found the body of her dead mother. 

It’s a lot to absorb in its brisk running time, and director Bekmambetov rarely allows any moments of contemplation — you’ve got 90 minutes or you’re dead! — with a ticking clock among the many, many screens that crowd in on Chris Raven and scream at the audience: there’s a bomb! It’s about to explode! We mean metaphorically, but we want your pulses to race! Look out behind you! 

The film is exhausting to watch, even while it’s simultaneously diverting and outrageously silly. (There is nary an intentional laugh, though there are many moments of unintentional merriment.) It is, however, marginally better than Timur Bekmambetov’s production of War of the Worlds, which isn’t saying much. 

But, hey, it’s in IMAX! Enjoy your impending headaches, boys and girls.   

The film opens throughout the DFW Metroplex tomorrow, only in movie theaters, via Amazon MGM Studios  For locations and showtimes, visit the official site.