Cyberthriller Mercy wastes its high concept, The Rip saved by Matt Damon-Ben Affleck pairing

Mercy (PG13)

100 minutes, opens on Jan 29

★★☆☆☆

The story: In the year 2029, Los Angeles Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) awakens in an empty courtroom, on trial for the murder of his wife (Annabelle Wallis). He has 90 minutes to prove his innocence to an artificial intelligence (AI) judge or be executed instantly in the chair he is strapped to.

The virtual Mercy Court in this Hollywood science-fiction whodunnit is a tribunal adopted for a new world order, in response to the city’s crime and poverty. Its impassive Judge Maddox (played by Rebecca Ferguson as a hologram) is also jury and executioner.

And in place of a lawyer, defendants are granted unlimited access to data in the municipal cloud. Raven pulls up footage from security cameras, social media, smartphones and drones for evidence to make his case.

He concurrently launches a real-time ticking-clock investigation with FaceTime assist from his teen daughter (Kylie Rogers) and police partner (Kali Reis), scrutinising the onslaught of images for the actual killer.

Russian-Kazakh film-maker Timur Bekmambetov wants you, too, to focus on his innovative storytelling via digital interfaces, rather than the outrageously contrived story that crams in everything from alcoholism to domestic terrorism to car chase mayhem, while the hero sits, frantic yet immobile.

The director first experimented with “screenlife” as the producer of Unfriended (2014), Searching (2018) and Missing (2023). The format is a reflection of the connected world, how online interaction has become integral to everyday life.

It is visually dynamic, sure. But despite a near future that is patently the dystopia of today, the movie gives no serious thought to the ethics of its timely, troubling themes about AI dependency, privacy invasion and state control.

Hot take: Swipe left. This flashy cyber thriller squanders its provocative premise.

The Rip (M18)

112 minutes, available on Netflix

★★★☆☆

The story: A Miami Police Department narcotics unit, led by agents played by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, discovers millions in drug cash. Can the members resist the temptation to split the haul? Trust among them breaks down, and guns are drawn.

The American crime thriller The Rip is a blunt, confident action-genre throwback of the sort American writer-director Joe Carnahan built his name on.

It is like his Narc (2002) in being a drama on crooked cops, based on a true case.

The title is police slang for a raid. Damon’s Lieutenant Dane Dumars is tipped off to US$150,000 (S$190,400) in a house. Affleck plays his detective buddy, and with their team comprising Teyana Taylor, Steven Yeun and Catalina Sandino Moreno, they uncover US$20 million instead hidden in the attic.

The money becomes a test of character. Each must decide what to do, while doubting the others’ intentions.

The moral murk has been there from the start, in the pre-credits inside job homicide of their captain (Lina Esco) that hangs over them, unsolved.

It is further muddied when the loot attracts an invasion by a drug enforcement task force, the Feds and cartel soldiers.

The ensemble is top-flight: Taylor of One Battle After Another (2025) is a front runner for the Academy Awards’ Best Supporting Actress.

But this is Damon and Affleck’s movie. They are the producers. And as co-stars, the boyhood besties – who together arrived in Hollywood 28 years ago with their Best Original Screenplay Oscar win for Good Will Hunting (1997) – bring with them a lifetime’s bromance.

Their charmed history is effectively leveraged for emotional charge as they turn enemies on-screen in a paranoid night-long siege of shoot-outs and twisty betrayals.

Hot take: The Maffleck partnership makes any movie twice better.