If there’s one good thing to be said about “Mercy,” it’s that the movie’s premise is fascinating. Chris Pratt, as the conveniently named Chris Raven, has 90 minutes to convince an artificial intelligence judge that he did not kill his wife. All signs point to Chris’ guilt, and thus, there’s an ideal pressure cooker for a paranoid thriller. Unfortunately, the movie that follows is not nearly as inspired.

“Mercy” is mostly set in a blank interrogation room, where all the audience can see is Chris, his AI judge (Rebecca Ferguson), and a bunch of internet tabs. “Mercy” is what’s known as a “screenlife” movie, meaning that most of its action takes place on the internet. Chris is tied to a chair, and all he can do is scroll through text messages, body cameras, bank histories and live FaceTime calls in an attempt to prove his own innocence.

If this sounds a bit familiar, that may be due to the infamous screenlife remake of “War of the Worlds” (2025), starring Ice Cube as another man with a serious case of scrolling. “Mercy’s” director, Timur Bekmambetov, was also a producer on “War of the Worlds.”

That’s not to say the entire “screenlife” genre is doomed. At times, the approach “Mercy” takes is really engaging, especially when this scrolling gets faster and more focused. There’s one sequence where Chris looks through documents and security camera footage to solve a drug-related crime, and it gets quite thrilling.

If the whole movie were as propulsive as a few of these standout segments, it could be a solid flick. However, the screenplay has other plans; these intense sequences are mostly reserved for the latter 45 minutes of the movie.

The first 45 minutes needed something, then, to mix with the Scooby-Doo detective work. What we get is a cringeworthy attempt at emotional weight, with Chris’ desperate pleas about his horrible situation ignored by the judge. These attempts especially don’t land because we don’t learn much about Chris’ character other than that he loves his daughter and hates his AI judge.

Predictably, this movie later throws all that out the window in an ineffective attempt to humanize Ferguson’s AI character.

Despite her character’s emotional whiplash, Ferguson is excellent throughout as a cold, calculating program set only on justice and the facts. The cast around Pratt and Ferguson is also solid, especially given their characters’ comparative lack of screentime. Kylie Rogers is affectingly distraught as Chris’ daughter, Britt, and Jeff Pierre is great as the adulterous chef Patrick Burke.

“Mercy” screenwriter Marco van Belle guides these characters through a series of twists and turns meant to keep you guessing for the movie’s duration. These twists range from obvious villain reveals to out-of-left-field nonsense. In particular, the movie’s final decision on what to do with Chris’s trusted colleague in the police force is baffling, as it feels completely at odds with the way her character is portrayed throughout the rest of the movie.

This movie also tries to be a cautionary tale. AI court system aside, the police officers ride ugly helicopter-drones, gigantic unhoused encampments litter the city, and the movie’s screenlife footage clearly labels that the movie is set in 2029 Los Angeles.

All of this is a very promising setup for an examination of the pitfalls of institutions like police, courts, and, of course, technology. However, the screenplay doesn’t do much to resolve these ideas, concluding on the vapid idea that both humans and technology make mistakes.

“Mercy” pretends to be an action movie and a murder mystery, and it fails at both. Chris is tied to a chair, of course, so the action must come from panicked witnesses sprinting from the helicopter-drones, as well as a few flashbacks. There’s only so much the movie can do with these drones and a bunch of police officers on FaceTime, so it eventually resorts to an uninspired car chase.

On the mystery front, the movie cleverly establishes within the first few minutes that all signs point to Chris being the killer — there is apparently a “97.5% chance” he did it. Instead of the firm proof that the AI judge insists on, Chris instead leans on a series of contrivances and lucky guesses to win his “trial,” before the movie remembers it’s time for the car chase finale.

”Mercy” is not worth a trip to the movie theater, given its difficult screenplay and poor execution. If you really feel the need to watch it, you might as well wait until it hits streaming.