Mercury Rising

Mercury Rising
by Harold Becker

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DVD Reviews of Mercury Rising

DVD Review: Silly, contrived, low budget parody of the genre.
Summary: 1 Stars

What we do mind, however, is suspending any semblence of intelligent thought. We do mind taking the time to drive to the video store, shell out four bucks, make popcorn and settle into our easy chair, only to be left at the end of an hour (which is all I could take before pressing the eject button) feeling that the fact that this movie attracted a large box office reflects somewhat sadly on the prospects for the human race. Not exactly chicken soup for the Sunday night blahs. To add insult to injury, we have to go out of our way to return the movie on Monday. We can't just clobber it with a hammer.

The problem with Mercury Rising is that there are so many instances of the utterly ridiculous that the suspense is lost, and the movie becomes little more than a thin parody of its own genre. At times you wonder of you're watching Bruce Willis or Leslie Neilson.

What are we to make, for instance, of the autistic boy's complete lack of friends, relatives, neighbors, child care workers, teachers, or anyone else who takes the slightest interest in his welfare? Who can expect us to believe that his parents are his only link to the world, and that when they are gunned down in cold blood, the tough but soft-hearted cop (Willis) is the only one who cares? How can we accept that the beaureucrat in charge of America's security (Baldwin) could ever conceive of working with the two bumbling oafs who purportedly came up with the top secret code in the first place? How can we believe that the gunman in charge of exterminating anyone and everyone who knows about the code leak would ply his trade with an eighteen inch gun/silencer combination on crowded city streets in broad daylight? What are we to make of Willis, whose mission is protection of the boy, leaving the child in a crowded cafe, under the custody of a woman whom he has never met? And are we really to believe any sensible woman would take charge of a stranger's child, let alone an autistic child?

As if the introduction of this stranger into the plot isn't laughable enough, the director makes it completely ludicrous by dragging up the overused "I've only met you once but that gives me the right to knock on your door at three-a.m. because you're a softie and I'm really desparate for a place to sleep and I promise I won't rape you" trick. Hilariously, the woman opens the door. Even more hilariously, she believes Willis when he tells her that he is an FBI agent, but that he has nowhere else in the world to turn. That's right. No friends. No relatives. No hotels. No motels. No nothing. It's a very strange world in the universe of low budget film making. Good thing he met her yesterday, otherwise he'd just have to camp in the park, or sleep in the car.

Which Willis did the day before, by the way. Very tired from running around all day with an autistic kid. Just parked and dozed off while the kid sat there beside him. Slept through the night. Slept through sunrise. Slept through rush hour traffic. Slept through the kid opening the door and walking out. Pretty sound sleeper for a cop protecting a kid from assassins, I'd say.

No problem, though, because he woke up and found the kid five minutes later wandering just a few blocks away. Kid hops out of car while cop sleeps. Cop awakes in a panic, but finds kid strolling down the street safe and sound. That's about the tautest suspense scene you'll find in Mercury Rising.

At every turn, overused gimmicks and silly contrivances wreak havoc with the plot. Take for instance, the events in the hospital where the boy is taken for examination after his parents are shot. Strap him to the bed, why don't we? That's always therapeautic for an autistic child after his parents have been shot. Good idea, let's just strap him to the bed, and leave him alone for the night. And by the way, let's make sure we don't put any blankets on him. And since nobody cares about him, we can certainly believe that the nurse on duty doesn't know his parents have been shot. Or did she forget that when his "parents" requested a transfer to another floor? But Bruce doesn't forget. No sir. Our hero puts two and two together in a flash. He knows that dead parents can't request a transfer, and smells something fishy. Rightly so. He rushes to the X-ray floor, just in time (of course) to find our gunman about to shoot the boy. Say, why is it that gunmen always have to request a transfer and call off the security guards. before they shoot someone in a hospital. Is that hospital protocol? I bet it's part of nurse training, learning to say "Sorry sir, you can't shoot that patient. He hasn't been transferred yet, and his security guards haven't been called off. Come back tomorrow. No doubt you'll find him in X-ray, no guards, no staff. It's nice and quiet down there. You can shoot him then. But be sure to come exactly at three o'clock, because the action hero is due to make is rounds at three-o-five. Of course if you come early, that's your perogative. But if you come early, you won't be allowed to shoot. You'll just be allowed to transfer the patient around the hospital until the action hero turns up."

But the comedy isn't limited to the script. It's right there in the action scenes too. Take for instance the foot chase scene in which our hero tries to apprehend the gunman who's just shot the computer programmer in cold blood. As the gunman shoots at Willis, Willis, ever the community-minded cop, turns to a crowded staircase and yells "down". Instantly, the entire crowd stops and, as one, drops to its knees. No panic, no pushing, no movement. Only a hundred dollar budget for fill-ins and a scene shot in ten minutes. Done. Onto the next. Let's get the gunman shooting at the hero now. But let's create some confusion and suspense. Hmm, what could we do... Think... Think... I know! I have a terrific idea that's never been done before. How about we have some tourists just walk out innocently between the gunman and the hero, blocking the shot. Now gunman, you look stupid and confounded. Wave your gun around as if you're trying to get a clear shot past the innocent tourists. Good. Now panic-stricken crowd, you just stay frozen. Now tourists, you just walk out here, about a dozen of you. Don't take any notice of the guns or the panic-stricken crowd. You're Chinese, remember? You just think it's part of American culture. Snap pictures, OK, and talk a lot. Let's get the girls in front here. OK. Ready... Roll-em! That's a wrap.

The only rise you will get out of Mercury Rising is your blood pressure, if you can endure it. Willis was great in Die Hard (the original) and has steadily gone downhill since

Description of Mercury Rising