“Mercy,” a film released in January 2026, depicts a dystopian Los Angeles in the near future: a city riddled with violence, homelessness and civic disorder. California’s response is to set up the Mercy Capital Court, run entirely by an AI bot that goes by the name Judge Maddox. The judge can analyze evidence, determine whether the threshold for guilt has been met and execute the defendant – all in a matter of 90 minutes.
Actor Chris Pratt plays a police officer named Chris Raven, who stands accused of murdering his wife. If he wants to leave the Mercy Court alive, he must do everything he can to lower his “guilt score” – the AI’s assessment of whether he’s the killer – from 97.5% to 92%.
