"Mercy" is a Pro-AI Sci-Fi Thriller that Barely Makes Sense

Artificial Intelligence has permeated nearly every part of our lives. Despite the negative effects on artistic expression, high water usage, and what essentially amounts to theft of creative work, a new AI app pops up seemingly every day. This over-saturation is what led me to watching Mercy, a new film directed by Timur Bekmambetov that takes place in a near future world where AI has taken over the role of judge, jury, and executioner.

In Mercy, Detective Raven (Chris Pratt) is accused of murdering his wife in a crime of passion. He wakes up after a drunk binge and finds himself tied to an electric chair. He’s facing the Mercy Court, and the only way to leave alive is to prove his innocence—in just 90 minutes. The AI judge, named Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) gives Detective Raven access to all cameras, emails, and files that exist on the cloud. It is an all-seeing being, and now Detective Raven must use these files to put together a case and prove his innocence. The movie takes place in real time with a countdown timer in the corner, allowing us to see exactly how Chris Raven spends what could be the final 90 minutes of his life.

By the time Chris finds himself in the chair, the Mercy Court has been running for two years and killed 18 people. It’s efficient, and more than that it puts the fear of death in people, reducing crime in the city. Chris was a huge proponent of the system, even arresting the first person to die in the Mercy Court, so he knows how it works. There’s no way he’d end up there if it wasn’t a sure thing that he was guilty. He’s terrified, but he also has the advantage of knowing the system.

All too often, we witness police protecting their own and getting away with crimes. Whether it’s a police officer shooting a Black child or blatantly obstructing justice, their coworkers have their backs and perpetuate corruption. The way Chris was in a beneficial position by virtue of being a police officer was illustrated in this film. He was able to call all of his detective and SWAT team buddies to investigate on the ground. If he didn’t have their phone numbers and knowledge of how to proceed in an investigation, he wouldn’t have a chance of proving his innocence. 

After that, the film’s politics and my own diverged dramatically. Chris is the hero of the film, a white police officer who is unquestioningly innocent, despite his alcoholism and clearly abusive tendencies. In fact, his biggest flaw is that he didn’t kill the man who killed his former partner. This is in stark contrast to his current partner, a Black woman named Jaq (Kali Reis) who shoots first and asks questions later. In under two hours she manages to arrest a Black man who did nothing wrong, shoot wildly multiple times without worrying about who she hurts, and destroy evidence to give an innocent man the death penalty.

There’s a reason “ACAB” is a saying, and it’s because All Cops Are Bastards. It’s difficult to exist in that world without being asked to compromise your morals or make concessions to fit in. The system works because when there’s enough people backing it, it’s impossible to keep your job and stay the “good” one. Still, it’s an interesting choice to make the Black woman in the film the bad guy while the white man and the white AI judge work on the side of good to defeat her.

This choice becomes even more questionable when combined with the obviously pro-AI sentiment. It ends with Chris Raven telling Judge Maddox that it’s okay if she made a mistake and killed an innocent person. After all, both humans and robots make mistakes sometimes. Maddox becomes capable of making the correct decisions and showing emotion. She’s seen as a relatable person who ultimately comes around to fighting on the side of good. It’s a story about the heroic powers of AI and all the good it can do when trained by a well-intentioned white man. 

Even without the messaging, Mercy does not hold up as a movie. It’s sloppily done and the mystery doesn’t tie together at the end. It doesn’t really make sense how the person who ended up being guilty happened to meet Chris and his wife in the first place. There were loose ends around the relationship between Chris Raven and his in-laws, and his relationship to the Mercy Court was never even fully explained. 

I wanted Mercy to be an anti-AI story about how artificial intelligence actually exacerbates existing human biases. AI is trained to recognize patterns, so when the dataset it is given is biased, it will only continue that cycle and make it more severe over time. If an AI judge was to exist today, it would almost certainly prosecute poor people and people of color at higher rates than their white, rich counterparts. Instead, I got a movie where AI and the police were heroes whose mistakes—which included killing at least one innocent person—were minor in the grand scheme of things. 

I should not have had high expectations for a movie starring Chris Pratt, but my love of Rebecca Ferguson and my blind optimism that Hollywood as a whole would be anti-AI led me to click play on Mercy. Not only did it fall short of my expectations, but the blatantly right-wing politics left a bitter taste in my mouth. If you have 100 minutes of free time today, spend it watching anything else.