February 3, 2026
In Los Angeles 2029, there are already Mercy Courts where AI judges have replaced human judges to deliver logical, unbiased and mistake-free verdicts in trials of individuals accused of heinous crimes. The accused had access to various web-based applications, video footage and databases to prove his innocence within 90 minutes. If he failed to do so, the Ai judge would execute him right there on the seat where he was strapped into.
One day, Nicole Raven (Annabelle Wallis) was murdered in her home. Prime suspect was her police detective husband Chris (Chris Pratt), so he had to prove his innocence in front of presiding AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Chris was an alcoholic and had a bad temper. Based on available evidence, the initial probability of guilt was judged to be 97.5%. Can he lower this to at least 92% for reasonable doubt to be spared execution?
The futuristic premise bout the justice system is very interesting, especially that this scenario is set only three years from today. The mechanics of the Mercy Court do sound very idealistic though, especially that authoritarian mandate requiring the devices of all individuals and organizations have to be connected to a so-called Municipal Cloud, the servers of which the AI judge had full access during the hearing in order to reach his verdict.
The accused directed the investigation of his case. He was the one who chose whose devices to access, and the AI judge would grant him access to them. Of course, Chris was in a position to make full use of these digital resources to their full capacity to help him. He is a trained detective who he knew how to run the investigation. He also had his partner Jaq Diallo (Kali Reis) and his other friends in the police department to help him at critical moments.
This latest film by Kazakh filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov is an extension of the "Screenlife" filmmaking style that he pioneered with films like "Unfriended" (2015) and "Searching" (2018), telling stories via images from gadgets. Chris Pratt played his flawed lead character to edge of being hammy. Rebecca Ferguson fared better, playing emotionless AI judge Maddox to the point of self-awareness. Supporting cast were rather amateurish in their acting. However, this was not as bad as its dismal 22% Rotten Tomatoes score would imply. 5/10
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