'Mercy' review: Chris Pratt thriller more suited to streaming than the big screen

The year is 2029, the city is Los Angeles, and police detective Chris Raven wakes up in a high-tech electric chair facing a judge named Maddox. She isn’t human, but an AI whose unsmiling face appears on a massive screen — part of a new legal system called Mercy. In dispassionate tones, Maddox informs Raven that his wife has been murdered, he’s the suspect and he has 90 minutes to prove his innocence.

The slam-bang opener of "Mercy" and its two major stars — Chris Pratt as Raven and Rebecca Ferguson ("Mission: Impossible") as Maddox — fairly scream big-screen movie. But somehow, this doesn’t feel like one. Marco van Belle’s screenplay is short on character and long on implausibilities, while director Timur Bekmambetov waves his camera around to add motion to what is basically a story centered on a guy in a chair. "Mercy" is part of Amazon MGM's ambitious multi-film push into theaters this year, but it's exactly the kind of throwaway content people are happy to wait 45 days to watch at home.

On the upside, it’s fun to join Raven as he pieces together clues using files, invoices, phone logs and social-media feeds contained in something called the Los Angeles Municipal Cloud (which actually does sound plausible). His rebellious teenage daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), isn’t much help, nor is his AA sponsor, Rob (Chris Sullivan, of NBC’s "This is Us"). Luckily, his partner, Jacqueline (Kali Reis), is always willing to hop on the nearest hovercraft to chase down a suspect. Pratt, a natural-born charmer, is in 100% serious mode here, which seems like the wrong choice; a little humor would have been welcome. Meanwhile, Ferguson’s Maddox is one inconsistent AI, alternately uncaring, sinister and helpful. "You're losing your focus," she tells Raven as his emotions get the better of him.

With its focus on character's screens (computers, phones, etc.), "Mercy" is part of a genre called Screenlife, according to Bekmambetov, who just happens to have produced most of the other examples, including "Unfriended," a laptop-centered horror film from 2015. It's a gimmick with a legitimate worldview — doesn’t everything happen on our screens now? — but it also has some serious limitations. For "Mercy" to keep us interested, it still needs to venture into the real world where people can run, shoot and fight. That means a lot of shaky bodycam footage and aerial surveillance shots, which grow tiring. There’s also a climactic vehicle chase that initially looks quite convincing but grows less so with each passing second. However that sequence was generated, it’s exactly the kind of thing AI tends to come up with.

"Mercy" wisely keeps its running time brief — precisely as long as Raven’s trial, in fact — so it’s certainly never boring. But it also doesn’t make time to explore some interesting questions. For instance: Would an AI judge reduce bias, or perpetuate it? Could an AI accurately detect human emotions? And by the time there’s a sequel, will these actors even need to show up?

By Rafer Guzmán

rafer.guzman@newsday.com