Review of Mercury Rising (1998) by Van R — 06 Mar 2010

When a 9-year old boy cracks an ultra-secret, $1-billion military code in "Onion Field" director Harold Becker's lukewarm conspiracy thriller "Mercury Rising" (** out of ****), the National Security Agency stops at nothing to cap both the parents and the kid. This polished Universal Pictures' release uses an autistic child as it gimmick. A compassionate but rebellious FBI agent (Bruce Willis) is the only character who stands between the youngster and inevitable death after his parents are murdered. Essentially, "Mercury Rising" combines familiar elements from the Harrison Ford thriller Witness and the Dustin Hoffman movie Rain Man with a touch of the Robert Redford espionage tingler Three Days of the Condor thrown in for good measure. This pallid suspense melodrama generates only marginal thrills and chills. A cliffhanger conclusion is about as pulsating as this dreary thriller gets. Mercury Rising is incredibly predictable. No way is the FBI going to kill a handicapped child. Nothing is more manipulative than plunging a defenseless adolescent in jeopardy. Further, "Mercury Rising" is tedious because the autistic boy is either annoying or too much of a zombie. The filmmakers tug without a qualm at your heartstrings to evoke feelings of sympathy for this orphaned urchin. "Mercury Rising" starts falling down from the get-go and doesn't let up until its lackluster shoot-out finale atop a skyscraper helipad.

As veteran FBI agent Art Jeffries, Willis sports a "Pulp Fiction" haircut and wears basically the same outfit. When the movie opens, Jeffries is working undercover with a gang of bank robbers besieged by the police. Although the criminals don't know it, Jeffries plans to surprise them until an overzealous FBI superior sends a phalanx of heavily armed agents into the bank. The Feds mow down anybody in sight. Two of the casualties are teenage boys, forced by their larcenous father to participate in the hold-up. A frustrated Jeffries assaults the FBI chief, and then finds himself reassigned to marginal stake-out jobs. In other words, a cliché of a cop character. No dog. No girlfriend. Just a bottle of downers and an attitude. Why Bruce Willis squandered his time with either this standard issue character or this jaded thriller is puzzling.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin of "The Departed"), a slippery patriotic NSA official, is soaking up the limelight. He has masterminded the creation of a quantum-leap communications spy code dubbed 'Mercury Rising.' Mercury is an undecipherable, sophisticated spy code that enables undercover government operatives to pass along information undetected by friend or foe. Two nerdy computer nerds working on the project have proved that the code is unbreakable. As a redundant back-up, they hide the code in a harmless puzzle magazine. The child, Simon (Miko Hughes of "Apollo 13"), gets a copy of the magazine, spots the cipher and gives them a call. The NSA freaks out and Kudrow wants to kill everybody involved and leave behind no traces. Kudrow is justifiably furious when he learns that the programmers concealed the code in the magazine without his approval. Paranoia haunts Kudrow. He fears the worst and dispatches a fish-eyed hit-man to kill, kill, kill!

Under Harold Becker's laidback, low-key direction, "Mercury Rising" merely simmers. Becker appears determined to play down as much of the action as possible. Nothing in the pedestrian Lawrence Rosenthal script comes as a surprise. Sometimes, the action seems unintentionally funny. During a life-and-death struggle between Kudrow and Jeffries, a gun is lost. The autistic child spots the pistol and walks almost too casually out onto the ledge. Wind ruffling his hair, he retrieves the gun with no thought to the high altitude and takes it back to Jeffries. While Jeffries and Kudrow swap blows, Simon hands the gun Jeffries the firearm. No suspense whatsoever is evoked by Simon's perilous ledge walking stunt. The autistic child gimmick backfires because the child is blind to his own welfare. When the filmmakers want to goose you , they let Simon wander off and into either an on-rushing train or car. These sudden, abrupt shock periodically punch up the film's lethargic pace. Indeed, Miko Hughes is splendid as Simon. He wears a faraway stare and displays convincing body language. Simon, however, is a leaden role. Rarely in jeopardy, he divides his time between screaming when strangers touch him and solving dangerous puzzles. Bullets are whining through the air and his sudden rescues from trains and cars are just too spontaneous to qualify as suspenseful. By the time you figure out that Simon could have been killed, Simon is safe.

Baldwin does an exceptional job as the antagonist when he appears on screen as an urbane, darkly-lit, menacing figure. He doesn't cross swords with Willis until almost an hour or more into the action. Good thrillers pit hero against villain as early as possible, and the earlier the better. This mantra helps stoke the emotional factor. They meet only twice, but both times Willis holds the best cards. The shallow script undermines their adversarial chemistry. Baldwin's baddie is far to neutral despite his bloodthirsty attitude to hate with a passion. Nobody will be copy-catting any of the antics in this flick. "Mercury Rising" is almost comatose because the villains lag so far behind Jeffries that he has time to catch forty winks. When the hero of an actioneer isn't leaping through flaming hoops or scrambling into a siren's bed, he is having it far too easy. Translation: zero excitement. The action never takes off like a roller-coaster. About the only inspirational aspect of "Mercury Rising" is John Barry's moody musical score that underlines each scene. If some of the music sounds different, Carter Burwell substituted for a couple of scenes. Lenser Michael Seresin's widescreen photography and Peter Honess' editing endow "Mercury Rising" with a sleek, seamless gloss. "Mercury Rising: has a considerably less than quicksilver pace. Only die-hard Bruce Willis fans need apply. Everybody else will be disappointed.