Warning: This post contains spoilers for “Mercy.”
Hollywood has always had a penchant for taking the phrase “art imitates life” to heart, especially when it comes to American politics. We’ve seen it in abundance in recent years with President Donald Trump, and even more so during his second controversial term in office, which has cracked down on immigration, crime and policing in this country.
That’s all I could think about while watching “Mercy,” the new sci-fi thriller starring Chris Pratt, as my worries around the future of justice in America played out onscreen.
Set in 2029, the film centers on an intense trial in which Los Angeles detective Chris Raven (Pratt) is accused of killing his estranged wife (Annabelle Wallis). With just 90 minutes to clear his name, Raven must defend himself before an AI-run court system he once hailed as “the future of criminal justice” (so the movie’s tagline purports) — only now it’s playing judge, jury and executioner with his life.
The majority of the movie is spent with a hungover Raven strapped to a chair, conducting his own remote murder investigation before a poker-faced AI judge (played by Rebecca Ferguson). As the prime suspect, he’s offered an arsenal of resources — including doorbell and body cams, social media accounts, public surveillance cameras, a phone line capable of reaching any person he requests to speak with and more digital tools that are alarmingly too accessible — to argue his case and prove, beyond the 92% threshold of reasonable doubt, that he didn’t commit the crime.
