Chris Pratt is stepping into uncharted territory with Mercy, a bold, screen-driven thriller that fuses courtroom drama, mystery, and action into a single, high-concept experience. Built around immersive technology and told through a web of digital perspectives, the film pushes both storytelling and performance into new territory.When he first read the script for MERCY, Pratt immediately knew this wasn’t a typical project. “I thought it was an inventive mystery story unlike anything I’d read before, which is saying a lot because I read everything! But this really caught my attention.”
At its core, Mercry unfolds as a high-stakes courtroom drama, but the film refuses to stay in one genre for long. As the case intensifies, the story shifts seamlessly between suspense, investigation, and action, all while unfolding through screens. “Mercy is a ‘multi-genre’ film — it’s a courtroom drama, a thriller, a mystery, and an action film,” Pratt adds.
The film’s narrative relies on a vast digital evidence system known as the LA Municipal Cloud, where every recorded moment can become proof—or a weapon—in the pursuit of justice. Surveillance footage, personal devices, and law enforcement cameras all collide to reconstruct the truth in real time.
For Pratt, the filmmaking process itself mirrored the intensity and scale of the story being told. “This film is unlike anything I’ve done before,” says Pratt. “We had one camera on me the whole time, and we were doing 40-minute or 50-minute takes. Then all the evidence that in the story is provided for the trial — what the film calls ‘the LA Municipal Cloud’ — was shot using iPhones, doorbell cams, GoPros simulating body cameras on police officers, drone cameras, video feeds, so many things. At any given time, we had dozens of cameras rolling. I just assumed everything was being filmed all the time!”