Mercy

Minority Report meets The Fugitive? The first twenty seconds of this near-future drama (cue the quadcopter twelve seconds in) finds a justice system that is largely automated. The conceit here is that a detective, accused of his wife’s murder, has ninety minutes and counting to prove his innocence—lest he’s assumed guilty. Directed by Timur Bekmambetov (Ben-Hur, 2016) and starring Chris Pratt and Rebecca Ferguson, the opening expository dialogue is set to a custom arrangement of French electronic music producer Gesaffelstein’s 2013 release, “Hate or Glory”, put together by music agency The Crystal Creative.

For the first minute or so, the music is largely beat-driven, with synth flourishes simmering down to an almost martial beat as we see Pratt’s character tried in AI court, strapped in a chair. As the judge challenges him to prove his innocence and his frantic research gets underway, the beat picks up again—it’s repetitive, insistent, and unnerving, which is absolutely fitting given the circumstances. At 1:32 we’re granted a mild comedic reprieve as Pratt sarcastically mutters “wow, thank you for that” under the advice that he’s running out of time.

For the last stretch of the trailer we finally get something resembling a tone in the synth—a very stubborn, tonally ambiguous G note up until 1:38 when we finally get a quick deviation to the minor third—a Bb. This minor third then appears more regularly; notice how at 1:53 there’s a bit of synch to the beat with the traffic horns. At 2:06 we get the time-honoured “trailer triplets” in the percussion, albeit well-matched with the point of view of a security camera careening towards the ground thanks to a well-timed punch by Pratt.

Besides the sound design that still signals “near future” (even if, ironically, it’s been doing so for forty years or so—hello, Blade Runner!), the use of two quarters followed by two sixteenths, with one more quarter to put us back on the beat, offers just enough propulsion and intrigue to set the tone of the trailer.

Regardless, it looks like Amazon may have a hit on their hands—at 16.5 million views and climbing since its release a week ago, clearly the public are keen for stories that speak to this AI-driven era and the eerily realistic near-future scenarios that may yet transpire.

Mercy arrives in theatres January 23rd.

— Curtis Perry