AI is presented as a force for good in new thriller Mercy – until it suddenly isn’t. The real-time film presents a world in which advanced technology handles justice by strapping the accused to a chair and giving them 90 minutes to prove their innocence. If they don’t? Their chair becomes an electric one.
In a twist, Chris Pratt’s LAPD officer, who helped create the robot judge (an AI RoboCop, if you will) finds himself on the opposite side of proceedings, and at the mercy of AI Judge Madox (Rebecca Ferguson). But as the clock ticks down, he realises that her lack of sentience might have helped reduce crime rates, but is actually an obstruction to justice. Who’d have thought?
