None of this is visually compelling, and “Mercy” plays like it was written as an AI system’s prompt response. The preposterous script by Marco van Belle has so many paint-by-numbers components that you could make a bulleted list. There’s a race against time, complete with TWO countdown clocks. We also get a desperate man trying to prove his innocence, a dystopian near-future Los Angeles, a failing marriage that may have led to a murderous crime of passion, a mystery where you can guess whodunit simply by counting how many characters are introduced, and a head-scratching last-minute twist.

In the opening scene, Raven wakes up barefoot and strapped to a chair in Mercy Court, the new, futuristic judicial system. An ad plays on the screen in front of him, providing exposition about how Los Angeles has become a vast wasteland of crime due to a collapsing economy. Meth addicts control “the red zones” and are so adept at crime that the justice system has turned to AI to handle the enormous amount of cases flowing through criminal court.

The Mercy court forces defendants to plead their case in front of ChatGPT Judge Judy — I mean, Judge Maddox. They are “guilty until proven innocent” and are given 90 minutes to plead their case. Since everything is plugged into the cloud (I bet the servers are Amazon’s), defendants have access to everyone’s phone, Ring cameras, and other surveillance devices. With this information, they can piece together a defense. If they fail, they are terminated with extreme prejudice.

As the old adage goes, a man who represents himself in court of law has a fool for a client. In the 18 prior cases presented in this new program, the score is Judge Maddox: 18, Defendants: 0.

Police officer Raven knows all of this information, because he was the biggest cheerleader for this barbaric new justice system. Along with his partner, Jaq (Providence native Kali Reis), he captured the first client for the Mercy Court. Raven argues with Judge Maddox about all these details for the first 10 of his 90 minutes. She keeps reminding him that the clock is ticking and that he’s on trial for stabbing his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), to death.

As Raven finds information supporting his case, the probability rate of his guilt goes down. Maddox’s stinginess in reducing the guilt percentage is an amusing bright spot in this debacle.

I admit that the plot details sound intriguing. But as Roger Ebert used to say, it’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it. “Mercy” completely botches that “how.” Raven is a drunk whose violent rages terrify his wife and daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), to the point where Nicole is having an affair to get away from him. Even his AA sponsor and best friend, Rob (Chris Sullivan), doesn’t seem to like him very much.

Officer Raven is also a hypocrite — the Mercy court was fine for all those unwashed poor people, but he deserves better. And he’s a liar, as Maddox points out when she presents evidence contradicting his testimony. Pratt doesn’t have enough charisma to pull off making us root for such an unlikable character. Only Ferguson imbues her character with charm and wit — and Maddox is not even real.

Both Amazon and the AI companies make their wills known in hilarious, obvious fashion. Jaq flies around on a gigantic version of Amazon’s delivery drones (I screeched with laughter when I saw it). The movie’s pro-surveillance agenda is also troubling, especially as it’s used to justify law enforcement invading everyone’s privacy using face recognition and other potentially biased AI-based tools.

Worst of all, after “Tron: Ares,” we’re stuck with yet another movie justifying the existence of AI by having it learn how to be “more human.” The climax of “Mercy” is an absurd melding of these visuals and ideas, featuring a chase that has so little regard for geographical space that it looks generated entirely by CGI.

I wonder if Amazon even wants you to pay attention to this movie. You could be listening in another room and still follow it without having to see a damn frame. I’m fast subscribing to the theory that these types of movies are made for you to be doing something else while they’re on. Half-an-ear of attention is better than none, I guess.

★

MERCY

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Written by Marco van Belle. Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Annabelle Wallis. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 100 minutes. PG-13 (the ChatODT prompt returns violence, profanity)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.

None of this is visually compelling, and “Mercy” plays like it was written as an AI system’s prompt response. The preposterous script by Marco van Belle has so many paint-by-numbers components that you could make a bulleted list. There’s a race against time, complete with TWO countdown clocks. We also get a desperate man trying to prove his innocence, a dystopian near-future Los Angeles, a failing marriage that may have led to a murderous crime of passion, a mystery where you can guess whodunit simply by counting how many characters are introduced, and a head-scratching last-minute twist.

In the opening scene, Raven wakes up barefoot and strapped to a chair in Mercy Court, the new, futuristic judicial system. An ad plays on the screen in front of him, providing exposition about how Los Angeles has become a vast wasteland of crime due to a collapsing economy. Meth addicts control “the red zones” and are so adept at crime that the justice system has turned to AI to handle the enormous amount of cases flowing through criminal court.

The Mercy court forces defendants to plead their case in front of ChatGPT Judge Judy — I mean, Judge Maddox. They are “guilty until proven innocent” and are given 90 minutes to plead their case. Since everything is plugged into the cloud (I bet the servers are Amazon’s), defendants have access to everyone’s phone, Ring cameras, and other surveillance devices. With this information, they can piece together a defense. If they fail, they are terminated with extreme prejudice.

As the old adage goes, a man who represents himself in court of law has a fool for a client. In the 18 prior cases presented in this new program, the score is Judge Maddox: 18, Defendants: 0.

Police officer Raven knows all of this information, because he was the biggest cheerleader for this barbaric new justice system. Along with his partner, Jaq (Providence native Kali Reis), he captured the first client for the Mercy Court. Raven argues with Judge Maddox about all these details for the first 10 of his 90 minutes. She keeps reminding him that the clock is ticking and that he’s on trial for stabbing his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), to death.

As Raven finds information supporting his case, the probability rate of his guilt goes down. Maddox’s stinginess in reducing the guilt percentage is an amusing bright spot in this debacle.

I admit that the plot details sound intriguing. But as Roger Ebert used to say, it’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it. “Mercy” completely botches that “how.” Raven is a drunk whose violent rages terrify his wife and daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), to the point where Nicole is having an affair to get away from him. Even his AA sponsor and best friend, Rob (Chris Sullivan), doesn’t seem to like him very much.

Officer Raven is also a hypocrite — the Mercy court was fine for all those unwashed poor people, but he deserves better. And he’s a liar, as Maddox points out when she presents evidence contradicting his testimony. Pratt doesn’t have enough charisma to pull off making us root for such an unlikable character. Only Ferguson imbues her character with charm and wit — and Maddox is not even real.

Both Amazon and the AI companies make their wills known in hilarious, obvious fashion. Jaq flies around on a gigantic version of Amazon’s delivery drones (I screeched with laughter when I saw it). The movie’s pro-surveillance agenda is also troubling, especially as it’s used to justify law enforcement invading everyone’s privacy using face recognition and other potentially biased AI-based tools.

Worst of all, after “Tron: Ares,” we’re stuck with yet another movie justifying the existence of AI by having it learn how to be “more human.” The climax of “Mercy” is an absurd melding of these visuals and ideas, featuring a chase that has so little regard for geographical space that it looks generated entirely by CGI.

I wonder if Amazon even wants you to pay attention to this movie. You could be listening in another room and still follow it without having to see a damn frame. I’m fast subscribing to the theory that these types of movies are made for you to be doing something else while they’re on. Half-an-ear of attention is better than none, I guess.

★

MERCY

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Written by Marco van Belle. Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Annabelle Wallis. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 100 minutes. PG-13 (the ChatODT prompt returns violence, profanity)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.

None of this is visually compelling, and “Mercy” plays like it was written as an AI system’s prompt response. The preposterous script by Marco van Belle has so many paint-by-numbers components that you could make a bulleted list. There’s a race against time, complete with TWO countdown clocks. We also get a desperate man trying to prove his innocence, a dystopian near-future Los Angeles, a failing marriage that may have led to a murderous crime of passion, a mystery where you can guess whodunit simply by counting how many characters are introduced, and a head-scratching last-minute twist.

In the opening scene, Raven wakes up barefoot and strapped to a chair in Mercy Court, the new, futuristic judicial system. An ad plays on the screen in front of him, providing exposition about how Los Angeles has become a vast wasteland of crime due to a collapsing economy. Meth addicts control “the red zones” and are so adept at crime that the justice system has turned to AI to handle the enormous amount of cases flowing through criminal court.

The Mercy court forces defendants to plead their case in front of ChatGPT Judge Judy — I mean, Judge Maddox. They are “guilty until proven innocent” and are given 90 minutes to plead their case. Since everything is plugged into the cloud (I bet the servers are Amazon’s), defendants have access to everyone’s phone, Ring cameras, and other surveillance devices. With this information, they can piece together a defense. If they fail, they are terminated with extreme prejudice.

As the old adage goes, a man who represents himself in court of law has a fool for a client. In the 18 prior cases presented in this new program, the score is Judge Maddox: 18, Defendants: 0.

Police officer Raven knows all of this information, because he was the biggest cheerleader for this barbaric new justice system. Along with his partner, Jaq (Providence native Kali Reis), he captured the first client for the Mercy Court. Raven argues with Judge Maddox about all these details for the first 10 of his 90 minutes. She keeps reminding him that the clock is ticking and that he’s on trial for stabbing his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), to death.

As Raven finds information supporting his case, the probability rate of his guilt goes down. Maddox’s stinginess in reducing the guilt percentage is an amusing bright spot in this debacle.

I admit that the plot details sound intriguing. But as Roger Ebert used to say, it’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it. “Mercy” completely botches that “how.” Raven is a drunk whose violent rages terrify his wife and daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), to the point where Nicole is having an affair to get away from him. Even his AA sponsor and best friend, Rob (Chris Sullivan), doesn’t seem to like him very much.

Officer Raven is also a hypocrite — the Mercy court was fine for all those unwashed poor people, but he deserves better. And he’s a liar, as Maddox points out when she presents evidence contradicting his testimony. Pratt doesn’t have enough charisma to pull off making us root for such an unlikable character. Only Ferguson imbues her character with charm and wit — and Maddox is not even real.

Both Amazon and the AI companies make their wills known in hilarious, obvious fashion. Jaq flies around on a gigantic version of Amazon’s delivery drones (I screeched with laughter when I saw it). The movie’s pro-surveillance agenda is also troubling, especially as it’s used to justify law enforcement invading everyone’s privacy using face recognition and other potentially biased AI-based tools.

Worst of all, after “Tron: Ares,” we’re stuck with yet another movie justifying the existence of AI by having it learn how to be “more human.” The climax of “Mercy” is an absurd melding of these visuals and ideas, featuring a chase that has so little regard for geographical space that it looks generated entirely by CGI.

I wonder if Amazon even wants you to pay attention to this movie. You could be listening in another room and still follow it without having to see a damn frame. I’m fast subscribing to the theory that these types of movies are made for you to be doing something else while they’re on. Half-an-ear of attention is better than none, I guess.

★

MERCY

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Written by Marco van Belle. Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Annabelle Wallis. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 100 minutes. PG-13 (the ChatODT prompt returns violence, profanity)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.

None of this is visually compelling, and “Mercy” plays like it was written as an AI system’s prompt response. The preposterous script by Marco van Belle has so many paint-by-numbers components that you could make a bulleted list. There’s a race against time, complete with TWO countdown clocks. We also get a desperate man trying to prove his innocence, a dystopian near-future Los Angeles, a failing marriage that may have led to a murderous crime of passion, a mystery where you can guess whodunit simply by counting how many characters are introduced, and a head-scratching last-minute twist.

In the opening scene, Raven wakes up barefoot and strapped to a chair in Mercy Court, the new, futuristic judicial system. An ad plays on the screen in front of him, providing exposition about how Los Angeles has become a vast wasteland of crime due to a collapsing economy. Meth addicts control “the red zones” and are so adept at crime that the justice system has turned to AI to handle the enormous amount of cases flowing through criminal court.

The Mercy court forces defendants to plead their case in front of ChatGPT Judge Judy — I mean, Judge Maddox. They are “guilty until proven innocent” and are given 90 minutes to plead their case. Since everything is plugged into the cloud (I bet the servers are Amazon’s), defendants have access to everyone’s phone, Ring cameras, and other surveillance devices. With this information, they can piece together a defense. If they fail, they are terminated with extreme prejudice.

As the old adage goes, a man who represents himself in court of law has a fool for a client. In the 18 prior cases presented in this new program, the score is Judge Maddox: 18, Defendants: 0.

Police officer Raven knows all of this information, because he was the biggest cheerleader for this barbaric new justice system. Along with his partner, Jaq (Providence native Kali Reis), he captured the first client for the Mercy Court. Raven argues with Judge Maddox about all these details for the first 10 of his 90 minutes. She keeps reminding him that the clock is ticking and that he’s on trial for stabbing his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), to death.

As Raven finds information supporting his case, the probability rate of his guilt goes down. Maddox’s stinginess in reducing the guilt percentage is an amusing bright spot in this debacle.

I admit that the plot details sound intriguing. But as Roger Ebert used to say, it’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it. “Mercy” completely botches that “how.” Raven is a drunk whose violent rages terrify his wife and daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), to the point where Nicole is having an affair to get away from him. Even his AA sponsor and best friend, Rob (Chris Sullivan), doesn’t seem to like him very much.

Officer Raven is also a hypocrite — the Mercy court was fine for all those unwashed poor people, but he deserves better. And he’s a liar, as Maddox points out when she presents evidence contradicting his testimony. Pratt doesn’t have enough charisma to pull off making us root for such an unlikable character. Only Ferguson imbues her character with charm and wit — and Maddox is not even real.

Both Amazon and the AI companies make their wills known in hilarious, obvious fashion. Jaq flies around on a gigantic version of Amazon’s delivery drones (I screeched with laughter when I saw it). The movie’s pro-surveillance agenda is also troubling, especially as it’s used to justify law enforcement invading everyone’s privacy using face recognition and other potentially biased AI-based tools.

Worst of all, after “Tron: Ares,” we’re stuck with yet another movie justifying the existence of AI by having it learn how to be “more human.” The climax of “Mercy” is an absurd melding of these visuals and ideas, featuring a chase that has so little regard for geographical space that it looks generated entirely by CGI.

I wonder if Amazon even wants you to pay attention to this movie. You could be listening in another room and still follow it without having to see a damn frame. I’m fast subscribing to the theory that these types of movies are made for you to be doing something else while they’re on. Half-an-ear of attention is better than none, I guess.

★

MERCY

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Written by Marco van Belle. Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Annabelle Wallis. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 100 minutes. PG-13 (the ChatODT prompt returns violence, profanity)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.

None of this is visually compelling, and “Mercy” plays like it was written as an AI system’s prompt response. The preposterous script by Marco van Belle has so many paint-by-numbers components that you could make a bulleted list. There’s a race against time, complete with TWO countdown clocks. We also get a desperate man trying to prove his innocence, a dystopian near-future Los Angeles, a failing marriage that may have led to a murderous crime of passion, a mystery where you can guess whodunit simply by counting how many characters are introduced, and a head-scratching last-minute twist.

In the opening scene, Raven wakes up barefoot and strapped to a chair in Mercy Court, the new, futuristic judicial system. An ad plays on the screen in front of him, providing exposition about how Los Angeles has become a vast wasteland of crime due to a collapsing economy. Meth addicts control “the red zones” and are so adept at crime that the justice system has turned to AI to handle the enormous amount of cases flowing through criminal court.

The Mercy court forces defendants to plead their case in front of ChatGPT Judge Judy — I mean, Judge Maddox. They are “guilty until proven innocent” and are given 90 minutes to plead their case. Since everything is plugged into the cloud (I bet the servers are Amazon’s), defendants have access to everyone’s phone, Ring cameras, and other surveillance devices. With this information, they can piece together a defense. If they fail, they are terminated with extreme prejudice.

As the old adage goes, a man who represents himself in court of law has a fool for a client. In the 18 prior cases presented in this new program, the score is Judge Maddox: 18, Defendants: 0.

Police officer Raven knows all of this information, because he was the biggest cheerleader for this barbaric new justice system. Along with his partner, Jaq (Providence native Kali Reis), he captured the first client for the Mercy Court. Raven argues with Judge Maddox about all these details for the first 10 of his 90 minutes. She keeps reminding him that the clock is ticking and that he’s on trial for stabbing his wife, Nicole (Annabelle Wallis), to death.

As Raven finds information supporting his case, the probability rate of his guilt goes down. Maddox’s stinginess in reducing the guilt percentage is an amusing bright spot in this debacle.

I admit that the plot details sound intriguing. But as Roger Ebert used to say, it’s not what a movie is about, but how it’s about it. “Mercy” completely botches that “how.” Raven is a drunk whose violent rages terrify his wife and daughter, Britt (Kylie Rogers), to the point where Nicole is having an affair to get away from him. Even his AA sponsor and best friend, Rob (Chris Sullivan), doesn’t seem to like him very much.

Officer Raven is also a hypocrite — the Mercy court was fine for all those unwashed poor people, but he deserves better. And he’s a liar, as Maddox points out when she presents evidence contradicting his testimony. Pratt doesn’t have enough charisma to pull off making us root for such an unlikable character. Only Ferguson imbues her character with charm and wit — and Maddox is not even real.

Both Amazon and the AI companies make their wills known in hilarious, obvious fashion. Jaq flies around on a gigantic version of Amazon’s delivery drones (I screeched with laughter when I saw it). The movie’s pro-surveillance agenda is also troubling, especially as it’s used to justify law enforcement invading everyone’s privacy using face recognition and other potentially biased AI-based tools.

Worst of all, after “Tron: Ares,” we’re stuck with yet another movie justifying the existence of AI by having it learn how to be “more human.” The climax of “Mercy” is an absurd melding of these visuals and ideas, featuring a chase that has so little regard for geographical space that it looks generated entirely by CGI.

I wonder if Amazon even wants you to pay attention to this movie. You could be listening in another room and still follow it without having to see a damn frame. I’m fast subscribing to the theory that these types of movies are made for you to be doing something else while they’re on. Half-an-ear of attention is better than none, I guess.

★

MERCY

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Written by Marco van Belle. Starring Chris Pratt, Rebecca Ferguson, Kali Reis, Chris Sullivan, Kylie Rogers, Annabelle Wallis. At AMC Boston Common, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, AMC Causeway, suburbs. 100 minutes. PG-13 (the ChatODT prompt returns violence, profanity)

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.