New movie Mercy, a high-concept thriller that skirts the hard questions around AI justice
Table of Contents
DIRECTED by Timur Bekmambetov, Mercy wants to be a timely warning about artificial intelligence (AI), state power and the death penalty. Instead, it ends up saying almost nothing at all.
The 2026 science fiction thriller is set in a near-future Los Angeles where AI judges decide violent crime cases. Defendants are given 90 minutes to prove their innocence or face execution. It is a high-concept premise that should invite uncomfortable questions about surveillance, bias and the limits of automated justice. Mercy never commits to asking them.
The film follows (Los Angeles Police Department) LAPD detective Chris Raven, played by Chris Pratt, who finds himself on trial for his wife’s murder. Presiding over the case is Judge Maddox, an AI portrayed by Rebecca Ferguson. Raven’s guilt probability begins at 97.5% and he must lower it below 92 % to survive. A ticking countdown runs throughout the film, helpfully reminding the audience how much longer they have left.
Screenlife filmmaking
Mercy is built around Bekmambetov’s screenlife filmmaking approach, a format he pioneered to reflect how everyday life has migrated onto digital screens. In screenlife films, stories unfold entirely through computers, tablets and smartphones, with the audience watching events play out from the point of view of those devices.
Bekmambetov first introduced the format to mainstream audiences with the 2015 teen horror film Unfriended. He followed it up with the 2018 thriller Searching, starring John Cho, which helped establish screenlife as a viable genre beyond horror. Since then, the format has expanded across platforms and genres, including Profile and R#J, earning Bekmambetov industry recognition as one of the medium’s key innovators.
In Mercy, however, the technique feels less like an evolution and more like a crutch. The screen-filled presentation is familiar rather than inventive and often distracts from the story instead of deepening it.
Vague stance
At its core, the film cannot decide what it believes. Is it pro-AI or anti-AI? Is it critiquing authoritarian surveillance or quietly endorsing it? Is it questioning capital punishment or merely using execution as a convenient plot device?
The setting is a fully realised surveillance state complete with omnipresent cameras, algorithmic guilt scores and designated high crime red zones. Yet the film never meaningfully interrogates how any of this infringes on human rights. Homelessness is framed almost entirely as a threat factor rather than a social failure. Privacy is treated as something already lost and therefore not worth defending.
For a film that positions itself as ethically urgent, Mercy avoids engaging with contemporary debates around AI and human judgement. The question of whether machines should ever be allowed to decide matters of life and death is brushed aside in favour of a centrist shrug. The film’s final takeaway that humans and AI can make mistakes lands not as insight but as a cop-out.
Lack of nuance
Performance wise, the cast is unevenly used. Ferguson’s Judge Maddox is the most intriguing presence but she is given little to do beyond staring unblinking into the camera and delivering exposition. It is a waste of an actor capable of far greater complexity.
Pratt continues his post-Marvel shift from lovable goofball to stoic action lead. It is a deliberate career move though not one that suits this material. Raven is never in real danger, which drains the thriller of tension. The drama surrounding his marriage, alcoholism and guilt feels generic and underdeveloped, lacking the nuance the story demands.
The villain’s plan collapses under basic scrutiny and the action elements feel perfunctory rather than gripping. Even the moral reckoning at the climax is defused by convenience rather than earned confrontation.
Mercy ultimately feels like a film trying to appear balanced while refusing to take a stance. In attempting to offend no one, it ends up saying nothing of value. For a story about automated justice and mass surveillance, that silence is its most damning flaw.
READ MORE:
Anaconda reboot has no fangs, just jokes
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple digs deeper
Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 turns horror into farce
Wake Up Dead Man takes Knives Out to church
