My life usually revolves around spreadsheets, airport lounges, and the endless hum of hotel air conditioning. As a corporate consultant, I spend about sixty percent of my year living out of a carry-on bag, which means my primary source of sanity is whatever I can watch on my tablet during a six-hour flight or a lonely evening in a city where I don’t know a soul. I’ve always had a soft spot for science fiction—the kind that makes you look at your smartphone with a bit of suspicion the next morning. When I heard that Chris Pratt was stepping away from his usual wisecracking hero persona to play a desperate man trapped in a futuristic legal nightmare, my interest was immediately piqued. I wanted something that felt urgent, something that captured the weird, tech-heavy anxiety we all feel these days.

I actually first heard the buzz about this film on 123movies, a spot I frequent to keep up with the latest independent and blockbuster releases when I'm tired of the same three options on the hotel TV. I noticed a few people talking about the unique real-time structure of the movie, and it felt like the perfect choice for my journey home last weekend. There is something uniquely immersive about starting a movie that takes place in ninety minutes while you yourself have exactly ninety minutes of battery life left on your device. It turned what could have been a boring wait at the terminal into a heart-pounding experience that had me checking the "Guilty Meter" on the screen as if my own fate were hanging in the balance.

The Ticking Clock of Digital Justice

The premise of Mercy on 123Movies is simple but devastatingly effective. We find ourselves in Los Angeles in the year 2029. The city is drowning in a crime epidemic, and the traditional courts have essentially collapsed under the weight of their own bureaucracy. In response, the city has implemented the Mercy Capital Court, a system where an advanced artificial intelligence serves as judge, jury, and executioner. Chris Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, a man who wasn't just a supporter of this system; he was one of its primary champions. The irony becomes a jagged pill to swallow when Raven wakes up strapped to a chair in that very court, accused of the brutal murder of his wife, Nicole.

What follows is a ninety-minute trial that unfolds in actual real time. Raven is given access to the "Municipal Cloud"—a terrifying digital network that connects every doorbell camera, drone, and smartphone in the city. He has exactly an hour and a half to navigate this ocean of data to find evidence of his own innocence. On the wall opposite him is a massive "Guilty Meter" that starts at a terrifying 97.5 percent. If he cannot use his detective skills to lower that probability to 92 percent before the clock hits zero, he will be executed on the spot by a sonic blast. It is a high-stakes pressure cooker that perfectly utilizes the "Screenlife" filmmaking style to show us the world through cameras and digital interfaces.

The Face of Algorithmic Judgment

While Chris Pratt delivers a raw, panicked performance as the accused, the film is truly anchored by Rebecca Ferguson as Judge Maddox. Maddox is the physical personification of the AI judge, appearing on a screen with a calm, unblinking intensity. Ferguson is masterfully cold here. She doesn't use the typical "evil robot" tropes; instead, she portrays a being that is purely logical and utterly devoid of human empathy. Watching her interact with Raven is like watching a man try to argue with a hurricane. You can’t plead for mercy from a line of code, and Ferguson’s performance makes you feel that hopelessness in every frame.

The supporting cast helps ground the high-concept technology in real human emotion. Kali Reis plays Jaq Diallo, Raven’s partner who is out in the streets on a futuristic "Quad Copter," following the leads that Raven discovers from his chair. Their chemistry is strained and complicated, as she has to grapple with the very real possibility that the man she trusts might actually be a killer. Then there is Kylie Rogers as Raven’s teenage daughter, Britt. Her scenes, often played out over frantic video calls, provide the emotional stakes that prevent the movie from feeling like a cold technical exercise. It’s not just about a man trying to stay alive; it’s about a father trying to prove to his child that he isn't a monster.

Key Cast & Crew

• Director: Timur Bekmambetov

• Writer: Marco van Belle

• Lead Actor: Chris Pratt as Det. Chris Raven

• Lead Actress: Rebecca Ferguson as Judge Maddox

• Supporting Actress: Kali Reis as Jaq Diallo

• Supporting Actress: Annabelle Wallis as Nicole Raven

• Supporting Actor: Chris Sullivan as Rob Nelson

• Supporting Actress: Kylie Rogers as Britt Raven

• Composer: Ramin Djawadi

• Cinematographer: Khalid Mohtaseb

Comparisons to the Classics of Science Fiction

A lot of viewers have pointed out that Mercy feels like a spiritual successor to Philip K. Dick’s themes, particularly those seen in Minority Report. However, while that story was about preventing a crime before it happened, Mercy is about the terrifying speed of justice after the fact. It’s "RoboJustice" in its most clinical form. While I was browsing some of the threads on 123movies during my flight, I saw a fascinating debate about whether this film was based on a specific novel. Interestingly, it is an original screenplay by Marco van Belle, though he was heavily inspired by real-world headlines about AI judges being tested in places like Estonia to handle small-scale civil cases.

The film takes that real-world grain of truth and pushes it to a dystopian extreme. It asks us to consider what happens when we prioritize efficiency over the "grey areas" of human experience. In a world where every second of our lives is recorded by a camera somewhere, do we ever truly have an alibi? The movie shows how data can be manipulated, how context can be lost, and how a "logical" conclusion isn't always a truthful one. It reminded me of some of the better episodes of Black Mirror, but with the high-octane production values of a summer blockbuster.

Film Fast Facts

• Release Date: January 23, 2026

• Running Time: 100 minutes

• Budget: Approximately $60 million

• Genre: Sci-Fi Thriller / Suspense

• Production Style: Screenlife / Real-time narrative

• Score: Composed by Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones)

• Theatrical Formats: 3D and IMAX

The Technical Brilliance of Timur Bekmambetov

Timur Bekmambetov is the perfect director for this kind of story. Having pioneered the "Screenlife" format with films like Searching, he knows exactly how to make a computer screen feel like a sprawling landscape. In Mercy, he blends traditional cinematography with drone footage, doorbell cams, and social media feeds to create a visual language that feels hyper-modern. The way the camera lingers on the "Guilty Meter" as it fluctuates by half a percentage point creates more tension than most car chases I’ve seen. You find yourself leaning in, squinting at the digital breadcrumbs along with Raven, feeling the same frustration when a file takes too long to buffer or a camera feed cuts out.

The score by Ramin Djawadi adds another layer of dread to the proceedings. It’s industrial, rhythmic, and perfectly mimics the ticking of the clock that dominates the screen. There’s a specific sound that plays every time the AI judge makes a "decision" on a piece of evidence—a cold, digital chime that starts to feel like a death knell by the third act. The film moves at a breakneck pace, and even though Raven is physically strapped to a chair for the majority of the runtime, you never feel like the action has stalled. The world is moving around him at 100 miles per hour while he sits at the center of the storm.

Final Verdict: Is it Worth the Watch?

Mercy is an uncomfortable, thrilling, and ultimately thought-provoking look at where our society might be headed. It manages to take the potentially dry subject of AI ethics and turn it into a pulse-pounding race against time. Chris Pratt gives a performance that reminds us he can do a lot more than just pilot a spaceship or train dinosaurs, and Rebecca Ferguson continues to be one of the most commanding presences in modern cinema. While the ending has some "cheeky twists" that might lean a bit too far into absurdity for some, the overall experience is incredibly watchable and deeply relevant.

If you are a fan of techno-thrillers that don't pull their punches, this is definitely a film you should look for on https://123movies.soap2day.day/ the next time you have a spare ninety minutes. It’s the kind of movie that will make you want to go home and put a piece of tape over your webcam, which is exactly what good science fiction should do. It challenges our reliance on technology and reminds us that no matter how advanced our algorithms become, they can never truly replace the complexity of the human heart. It’s fast, it’s stylish, and it’s a sobering reflection of our digital age.