Mercy has no interest in investigating the systemic flaws of AI or the cataclysmic consequences of rejecting the innocent-until-proven-guilty philosophy. It lazily and cynically just wants to be a daft popcorn flick.
Not even a month into 2026, and we already have a frontrunner for the year’s worst film. The initial idea behind the absurd Mercy is not an awful one, even if its AI-focused plot is well-charted territory. But it paves the way for a rote narrative, vulgar craftsmanship and questionable conclusions. It’s borderline propagandic in its dismissal of humanity in favour of mechanical, lifeless “thrills”.
It’s 2029, and LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) wakes up strapped to a chair in a vast, vacant room. In front of him, on a giant screen, is an AI judge known as Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson), who accuses him of murdering his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis). Los Angeles is suffering from a rise in violent crime, and so this AI programme – established by the Mercy Court – gives alleged criminals 90 minutes to state their case before they are executed on the spot. It’s guilty until proven innocent in the extreme. Chris, who was a leading proponent of this programme, now has to demonstrate his innocence before the very machines he enabled take his life.
On the surface, this has the ingredients for an invigorating chamber piece. But Mercy is less interested in this and more in the use of surveillance technology to build a case. It’ll come as no surprise that the director, Timur Bekmambetov, has produced several “screenlife” films – movies that take place primarily on a computer screen. Searching, Unfriended, and that horrendous Ice Cube-led War of the Worlds are all in his filmography. Mercy is one degree away from these flicks, as Maddox allows Chris to practically Google his way into defending himself. No bodycam footage, CCTV drone or Instagram account is off limits as Chris trawls through algorithms to plead his case, all while redundantly narrating everything he’s doing – possibly for those audience members who’ve wisely dozed off instead of watching this rubbish.
Mercy is a chamber piece that refuses to stay in the chamber, suggesting a lack of confidence in its own premise. In its place is a cacophony of revolting visuals. Like too many contemporary blockbusters, the film boasts a flat, soulless look, desaturated of any vibrancy or colour. Lifeless greys and cold beiges populate the screen, the futuristic city and police technology looking like a discount Robocop. Lax CGI populates the action scenes as the characters pontificate cliched lines and ham-fisted monologues on morality and justice. Worst of all is the overreliance on shot reverse shot editing. Rather than play with camerawork or shot composition, as the best chamber pieces do, the film cuts continuously between the same stagnant close-ups of its actors. Had one replaced the rushes with the actors’ headshots, there would be little difference.
Dry lead performances sour this already unimaginative choice. Ferguson at least has the excuse that she’s playing an Artificial Intelligence who has to remain stubbornly objective, her dead centre framing and monotone delivery coming across as more wooden than robotic. Pratt is merely doing variations of the same scowl, his limp “hard man” act being a pale, two-dimensional imitation of an action performance. It’s a visually narrow picture in which the restrictive setting hinders the actors; the drab, and far too close, close-ups only serve to let the picture narrate its numerous scrolling and phone-hacking scenes, underscored by a series of weightless plot twists, each as eye-rolling as the next.
Frustratingly, the film almost has promising elements, but it actively goes nowhere with them. Chris’s innocence is obvious, but he’s still painted as haughty and short-tempered. There’s an interesting nuance in there – he’s a bad person, but that doesn’t mean he’s capable of murder, or should be punished for something he didn’t do. Yet the moment other suspects are introduced, Chris’s rotten conduct is all but whitewashed, taking what could’ve been a compelling anti-hero and making him just another generic mouthpiece for one-liners.
Maddox’s trial runs entirely on government surveillance systems and on hacking anyone’s camera footage, whether from dashcams or social media platforms. Invasion-of-privacy concerns emerge from this, but aren’t explored beyond Chris’s teenage daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), saying how uncool it is, only for Chris to keep using surveillance technology because we wouldn’t have a film otherwise. Even the idea of an AI serving as judge, jury and executioner – a terrifying notion that could spell the death of free and fair trials – is more of a cheap gimmick than a point of thematic debate.
The resolutions to these underdeveloped concepts are what turn the picture from maladroit to repugnant. Without spoiling the film for those who wish to see it – something I advise against – the climax, which features AI incorrectly determining guilt, culminates in the following sentiment: humans and machines make mistakes but can learn. Since the film just stops after this twaddle, with no consequences or aftermath for these characters, human and AI alike, the picture is effectively suggesting that invasion of privacy, mass surveillance under a police state, and sentencing people to death on circumstantial, if not outright zero, evidence, are forgivable “mistakes” if the ends justify the means.
Not only is this a shallow outlook on dense topics, but it’s a dangerous one, too. It was more likely born out of a lack of thought than malicious intent, but, in a time where AI is increasingly threatening human livelihoods, and even aiding police states in the case of Trump’s America, such conclusions are irresponsible if not outright abominable.
Mercy has no interest in investigating the systemic flaws of AI or the cataclysmic consequences of rejecting the innocent-until-proven-guilty philosophy. It lazily and cynically just wants to be a daft popcorn flick. Pity it’s too creatively bankrupt and too artistically ugly to deliver on this, undecided on what format it even wants to be. It’s merely another superficial film that intends to exploit grand concepts, be it the complications of AI or broad societal issues, but has utterly no desire to understand them properly. Technically inept and so thematically scattershot that it becomes morally dubious, the only mercy in this ludicrous stinker is the end credits.
Mercy is now showing in cinemas nationwide.
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