This is the latest episode of Off Topic with Ben and Balky, and it's a special one because we have not done this show in two weeks because Ben was in Thailand for two weeks. Ben, I have to ask you, you did not see a lot of movies over in Southeast Asia. This was your first movie in several weeks.
I caught Mickey seventeen.
Yeah, that's right, you saw Mickey seventeen. Okay, So the fact that you you hit the mainland back in the States here, how exciting was it for your movie watching Stateside to be reintroduced with Mercy Starry Chris Pratt.
Yeah, I'll tell you, man, it was. It was a rough entry for him into into the world of movies.
I'm gonna tell you this right now. There was there was a stockpile for all the listeners out there. I know this is gonna be a good episode. I know this is gonna be a good episode because Ben and I and I knew so. Like so, just so everybody's aware, I liked this movie a lot. Okay, I liked it a lot, a lot more than I thought I was
going to like it. And I knew as I was watching this, this is going to join the bulky guilty pleasure films where I have to watch them anytime that you know, they're on television or I see them looking for something streaming, and this pops up. This joins all those great Jerry Bruckheimer Don Simpson movies of the nineties. This joins pretty much any Nicholas Cage movie ever made. This is right up there. But I knew when I
was watching it. I just had a feeling. I'm like, you know what, there are a lot of holes in this plot. Yeah, and I know Ben's going to poke a lot of them, a lot of holes into this, and I know he's not going to like it. And well, at least I thought you weren't going to like it. I didn't know, but I was pretty sure. And the other aspect of this was, as I was watching it, I could not know. There's there's some movies I just zone out to like. I just I can't, And I
thought this is gonna be another one. Because I was seeing it late on a Tuesday. Yeah, and I was like, you know, I'm probably gonna be snoozing through parts of this. I never was. I was on the edge of my seat for And the other thing too, I didn't know how, because there's different ways I could watch this, knowing I was gonna do the podcast with you. Should I watch it from the socio political aspect or you know, sort of how you always watch things from a very macro
view of what it's trying to tell us. Yes, sure, from from that standpoint. Should I watch it from the standpoint of who's really responsible? Who's the true villain in this movie? Because clearly it's not Chris Pratt, or was it? You know, we don't know as we're watching it. So there's a lot of different ways. And you know what, I said, to hell with it. There's just too much of that. I'm enjoying this too much. I'm just gonna enjoy the hell out of this movie. And I did.
Yeah, which that mindset to me kind of does describe the uh. The we went over the Rotten Tomatoes scores during my radio show yesterday. I was a twenty eight by critics and like an eighty two, like basically the inverse number of audiences. And I was commenting, I've never seen it that large. If you asked me what kind of movie would come out of that disparity would be what we watched yesterday exactly. And the listeners of my
show know this. And I was wondering if I was going to lean into this or not, but we may as well. This is not an indictment on the movie. I want to say. I think even if it were Running Man that I loved very much, when I watched it, I was gonna fall asleep. I am thirteen hours behind.
Okay, that's a good point in terms.
Of when I'm watching things. I was in a dark room. For those of you that don't listen outside the box, I woke I missed the last fifteen minutes of the movie, and I woke up. I was in a dream lounger. I had reclined my seats and the empty seat next to me, and I was sleeping horizontally.
With my Oh my god, really like it was straight up like I treated it. I'm so thankful there wasn't a lot of people in this theater.
You know, guarantee you some people saw me sleep, and I'm so happy that it wasn't an usher like at least I woke up to the credits. And you know what's funny is I did wake up for one quick second, and like fulky, I genuinely thought I was in my house because I woked up, woke up, I looked at the screen, and I went, oh, I predicted it was going to be that guy.
And then I went right back to bed. Yeah. So so so a couple of things on that. So number one, this is not unlike how the movie starts where Chris Pratt kind of wakes up and doesn't know where he is right his character. And then number two, when I was I did, I was playing the villain game of like, okay, is it is it her? Is it him? Is it you know or whatever? And I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is the person. Yeah, you know, spoiler free. But as I was deciding on that person, I'm like, I
think Kamenos is going to get this one right too. Yeah, And it didn't surprise me. And by the way, that wasn't even the big twist or cliff like, I don't even know what it is. Then okay, no, there's another big twist, because there's all there is almost well, there's a there's a big twist at the end, a significant twist. Cool, so how much so you don't even know how this ended? Like I said, I went, did you go on the internet and like actually read about it.
I read a little bit, but I'm not going to say anything obviously, because we don't do spoilers on this.
But I had to balky it. You had well at that point, that's not even bulkying it because you sat through it. It was after the.
Yeah, no, exactly. Have you ever fallen asleep in a theater?
Oh? Yeah? Really? The first time I ever did the first Avatar movie? Oh really, multiple times, I believe that. You know what mine was.
It's a funny one because it's such a deep cut. It was Ted's Excellent Adventure, the Close Close era, the Dick Tracy movie.
With Warren Baties.
Yeah, al Pacino's Big Boy. I went with my dad. I couldn't have been older than four years old, and we both fell asleep. And I like that movie, Like if you put it on, now, why did you fall asleep? Because I was like, that's just.
Was your did your dad want you to like? Was he a Dick Tracy guy? Growing up?
I don't know why we like, honest to god, man, it's the first time I remember going to the movies and we fell asleep for yeah, it was just like, yeah, but that's the only time. I'm not a like I catch all the midnight releases. I never am that go to bed at a theater kind of gain.
My dad is a massive James Bond fan, like he's the guy, and I haven't not. I've he's seen every Bond movie there is. I have not. I watched most of the newer ones, the Pierce brom said Val Kilmer, the Pierce Brosen ones. I've watched most of those. I watched all the Daniel Craig ones. And every time a new one comes out, my dad's like, oh, we gotta go see the new Bond movie. You gotta say it. My dad is is well, he's now I'm trying to think. He turns, oh Man seventy five this year, so he's
not a young man anymore. And when we saw the No Time to Die, which came out I think at twenty two, like and and he's like, he's got the old man where he's just falls asleep all the time, because you know, you don't sleep well at that age, and so when you don't sleep while you're constantly waking up, you sleep throughout the day. So he falls asleep a lot. And I know he was totally into it, and he was still falling asleep. Y, you know, it's just it is one of the things.
Oh, absolutely, absolutely, yea.
Now, now let's let's go through this here. Mercy is a movie about an artificial intelligence court. This is set in the future, right. Did you notice in some of the emails that were that they showed in this when these emails were dated the year. Oh, I didn't know. The year was twenty twenty nine, so a very very it's not a distant future. This is a very near future.
If I may very quickly, just because this kind of overlaps in my outside the box world. A think piece came out today from somebody who resigned from a tech company saying, the newest model that just released February sixth, we're recording this on February eleventh, he said. It's the first time he said the AI. Chatty says, if you used AI two years ago and you used it as like an advanced Google search, he goes, if you came back and used it today, you wouldn't recognize it.
He said.
The AI now has taste, it uses discernment, it does all these different things. Whether or not that's real or not is this guy just trying to sell it. I don't know, but the idea that three years from now, because we're talking about three years ago and it looked like appared to what's happening now, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that we're less than a half a decade away from this this reality right.
Essentially, Chris Pratt is a is a police officer. I think he gets promoted a detective at some point, but at the time, the catalyst for all this is basically.
The most cop name ever was something Raven.
Chris Chris Raven and and something happens, and he is a big believer in the justice system. The justice system fails and lets ay criminal go free. And I don't know who developed the tech for this AI court, but he was a big proponent of this, and why the city of Los Angeles was looking at a detective like, oh wow, he's throwing his weight behind us, then then this has got to be we gotta have this happen or whatever. That was kind of bizarre, not like he was the mayor of da or.
Anything like what the trailers made. It seem like he was the one that creed created it.
Yeah, yes, so as we find out in the film, something happens and he becomes a big proponent because the justice system fails him. Okay, And so basically what it is is it is called mercy, the Mercy court or whatever. Anybody charged with a was it a capital crime? Like a significant crime, you know, like a I had an ounce of weed on me or something like that, which actually is legal in California. So sure that doesn't matter. Yeah, So you have ninety minutes to prove your self innocent
or at least not guilty. Prove your not guilty. You have ninety minutes in front of this AI judge. You are strapped into a chair, you can't move, but you have like this big three D computer screen in front of you, and you have all the assets at your disposal. This AI can provide you with all this stuff, right, and and you can prove if you can, you know, at least the what's the level of guilty? Which is
another Okay, so that was the left. So if you are ninety two point four percent guilty, you are found not guilty. Yeah, like that's the which that was bizarre to me. Hold on, hold on, just let me let me just us just thought okay. Yeah, and if ninety minutes, if the AI judge, if if that percentage is still ninety two and a half or higher, you're basically killed instantly with a sonic boom. Okay, death punishment or death penalty,
death penalty, yeah, capital punishment anyway. Chris Pratt in this film is charged with killing his wife, Okay, and I don't know why. I'm like always telling you, like you so so you know what's going on. It helps, so so he and he has ninety minutes to prove it's a real four like it happens in ninety minutes spoiler alert. This film is like an hour forty five long, so
you know, stuff happens after too, which is great. And I knew that, like go, I'm like, oh, this is gonna be great because they're gonna add on this extra stuff. Okay anyway, but the difference is, like, he's not just some schlub x con right, He's an LAPD police LAPD detective, So he knows where to go to try to find evidence of his innocence, and he believes there's no way
he could have done this. And as we're watching more and more, we're kind of finding out you know what, maybe maybe it is the maybe it is him.
Did you think ever there was a time that he did it multiple times? Okay, see I was.
I never. I was like, if it's at least twice, I should say, Okay, yeah, I was because I thought that was the big that would be a big twist.
I agree, that would make it a super memorable movie. And it did stick out to me because he very clearly he utilizes and this isn't like this happens early on in the movie. He had extra resources at his disposal, like he was able to call police for Reilms.
Yes, and this which stuck out to me.
I'm just like, so if you or I ended up in that situation, we might not necessarily have the same means in order to prove our innocence that this individual character did. Which is that one of the plot holes you thought? Because that was driving me nuts.
Let's just throw the fact out that that he's a detective. Rebecca Ferguson played the AI judge. Yeah, you remember her from Dune form the Mission Impossible. Some of the newer Mission Impossibles did a great job. Okay, So to your point about having access to all this, it really seemed off putting to me that she would be so the AI judge, we'd be so regimented about you can only call this person if it's for this reason, you can only do this for so long or whatever. And he
seemed to get away with a lot of stuff. Right now if the AI, now this is the other thing, I don't know if it matters that he was a detective because he had or we heard from the AI judge that you have all the resources that artificial intelligence can provide. And these people that he was calling, you know, they didn't want to talk to him, but once they heard Maddox for mercy, they they're like, okay, this is serious.
Now I have to So there's there's some sort there must be some sort of penalty if you don't take the call or talk if you're called, like you can be charged with something if you're not talking to this. So so I don't know if now the advantage he had as a detective, he kind of knew where to look.
But it seemed to me that even if he wasn't, you have access to all this stuff, the crime scene, the files, whatever, and the AI was more than happy to provide it, which to me Ben and this is plot hole number one or plot hole number two, whatever, whatever. On what if you are found innocent, okay, and you walk, what about all that stuff you learned from AI, you know, private texts, calls, police reports, whatever, And now you're just walking as a free person, knowing all this with other people.
Point with his daughter. At one point he finds some stuff out that he otherwise wouldn't have known. And I mean that that's part of the game, and that that was probably the most realistic part of it to me, is the fact that you are actually mandated by law when you get a device, you connect it to this cloud. Like the idea of privacy is officially dead in this version of America. If you get a new phone, the idea of having a burner phone that isn't in the
system is a crime. The idea of not connecting certain profiles to this system is a crime because they need it.
We're learning.
You watch the Super Bowl, obviously you have the Ring Doorbell commercial where it shows you they found the missing dog and it with all the cameras without permission of the Ring Doorbell owners were searching the files looking for video of this dog. And I saw that I'm like, man, this is hitting so close to home and so.
Many Leveon Bell said about that. No, he put on something of an ex if, like we should all be taking our ring doorbells and throwing it into boiling pot of water. Yeah.
Yeah, he's spot on with that. That's exactly wrong. I'm with it because again, seeing those commercials and then watching this happen, it's like, oh man, we're really not that far. I really did like that element of it. I remember Terminator Genesis, the one where Khalisi plays Sarah Connor.
Oh yeah, Sali Amelia Clark, Yeah yeah, whatever.
That In that movie, Skynet essentially was the Cloud, and I thought that was such a dumb idea. And and fast forward I think it came out in twenty fourteen. Fast forward twelve years later. I'm like, oh no, Skynet would totally be the cloud. I don't know what I was thinking of it. That was actually way far ahead of its time. Even though that movie is still sucked, that one element was was way far ahead of its time.
Because I was watching that yesterday and I was like, oh no, this is I have an iPhone sixteen in my pocket. I just got it. I do not. It doesn't recognize my face. I have to punch the passcode in every time because I refuse to attach my face to this phone.
You know what's funny is I always have to punch in my passcode, but I would be fine putting my face on it, because I'm just of the opinion that they're gonna get it or they already have it right at some like like like it's identity theft.
You ever fly internationally. I'm catching a flight from South Korea to Thailand two weeks ago. I have my passport and my ticket. They go, no, no, no, just look at the camera. And I look at the camera and it says Benjamin Kammano's seat thirty two.
Ssh.
And I was like, oh my god, wow, And I actively avoid this shit.
Yeah, so they already had it, Yeah, they already had it. But that's what I'm talking about. Identity theft is like people already have your stuff. Yeah, you know, it's just a matter of you know, so that which doesn't mean you could be brazenly advertising it. But I'm not gonna, you know, freak out about being super secretive like brill an enemy of the state. Yeah, you know where he was like he really thought being in a big copper box would would prevent but now it's get away with it. Okay.
So that was one of the pop points I didn't like. I want to get back to this ninety two percent guilt versus innocence. Do you think that's right? Yeah? I mean if we are on a jury and we believe that somebody is ninety percent guilty, we should be finding him innocent. Yeah.
No, Because so I took law and justice.
Okay, this is good because I want to learn about this.
Here and it's uh so, there's a difference between criminal trial and civil trial. Criminal trials is beyond a shadow of a doubt if there is one element of you that's like, well, maybe you vote not guilty. If you and I are going to civil court about a car accident and fifty one percent of the evidence says I'm guilty and forty nine says you're guilty, I lose.
But in a criminal quot that's because somebody has to lose in that right.
It's referred to as a preponderance of the evidence. If one extra piece of evidence skews this way compared to the other way. If you threw your door open, and I was driving by, was I texting like, there's several elements.
That go in here. The O. J.
Simpson glove, Yeah, exactly. OJ Simpson was ninety two percent guilty, you know what I mean? And you get the innocent though, because and I've watched plenty of documentaries on that. Most people told Marcia Clark, don't tell them to put the glove on.
Yeah, you don't know.
And that element of it not fitting him, it's like, well, wait a minute, the bloody glove doesn't fit.
Him, then who the hell if it does not fit you?
Exactly, So ninety two percent feels accurate because it's beyond the shadow of a doubt for murder, because our system, for all of its flaws, is designed to prevent you let one hundred innocent or guilty men go free before you kill an innocent man. And that's always been the attitude and a lot of people of frustration with that. But I'd argue that's probably the better if the two system.
Yeah, I think I think you're right, and I guess that makes sense. I just it was it was shock. It was a little shocking to me that, Okay, if this guy is ninety one percent guilty.
And I like it that the upper bound was ninety eight percent, so they were like, yeah, we're never one hundred percent certain of anything at any point. I thought that was a cool element as well.
Do they determine that ninety eight but we can we can go to ninety eight, but we can't go to ninety nine.
I think it was just for a funny joke, because when you see ninety eight, and I think he says something like, well, at least it's not one hundred.
She's like, well, the highest it goes is ninety eight. And that's that's my point, Like, how do they decide like, oh, we can go as high as ninety eight, but we can't go as high as ninety nine. Yeah, I think that was just for comedic really. Okay, so let's talk about the AI aspect of this. What's the commentary now that you know what happens in the end and from what you saw on this film as well, what's the commentary, and maybe it's it's just bludging me over bludgeing, bludgeoning
me over the head. What's the commentary of about this filmmaker's view on AI.
I think it's referred to in my opinion, I think it's a very Pollyannis term. I think it's a it's a you have.
To remind me of polyN. It's a naive it.
Like probably was like oh shucks, like you know, because and I'm a firm believer that it's impossible to completely write humanity out of the equation, and it kind of seemed like that's the.
Theme artificial intelligence. What is that based on? It's based on human intelligence? Like we create AI, right, so so without humans there is well for now, but what we create artificial artificial intelligence?
So to me, I mean, actually what the singularity is? If you ever hear like people in tech movies to be like, we're approaching the singularity. Approaching the singularity is essentially ultron when ultrons are building stronger ultrons. When it hits a point where AI can build AI more sophisticated than humans, that's screwed the singularity. And I don't know if that's achievable. I don't know if that's a sci
fi idea. I don't know how relevant that is in terms of reality, but this movie kind of, in my opinion, I thought that that was the overarching Mike, there's always gonna be the gritty cop is able to show his innocence through X, Y, and Z even though all of this digital evidence is stacked against you and you're kind of able to still come out on top, kind of showing that good old fashioned ingenuity can still Well.
I think there is that commentary that was that conflict about like facts versus guts. Yeah, black and white versus gray, like there there you needed both of them essentially to.
Figure this out, and doing talk radio, I live in that sphere. I joke about it all the time. I don't have insight, I don't have sources that give me info that you, as another American citizen, wouldn't be able to get.
Said.
What I have is my gut. I read the information like, well, that doesn't make any sense because of this, but like no one's telling me that. So I do put a lot of stock in like someone's ability to take information and be like that doesn't pass the smell test and can a robot do that?
I don't know.
That was kind of the philosophy of this director here.
Well, it was pretty crazy about which, by the way, so I'm gonna butcher I brought I brought it up here. So I couldn't. I could say, I know I said his name on your show.
Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a tough one.
So so the director of this film two more Beck mcmn betof men Betoff Okay, also did a really interesting idea, interesting idea for a movie that I think was was kind of close to this called abrac No No, no no one, not that one, although that's I mean say he will, but Abraham like a vampire hunter. That was. That was a cool idea. He he did a movie starring John Chill. He might have produced this, actually I don't think he directed it, Searching. Did you ever hear
of Searching? Yeah? I have why John chose. Daughter disappears and Deborah Messing is in this as well as the detective on the case and find her. No, he's usually using social media profiles and digital data to try to figure out what happened to her. Then there's a supposed breakthrough in the case and we think everything's resolved, but it's really not. And then there's another twist in it. But it seemed very similar to this about, you know,
using all this digital information, somebody's always watching something. We had the birdcam from from Chris Pratt's neighbor's house that played a vital role in this All birds are they?
That's birds aren't real? Remember that?
Oh yeah? Yeah? And then he also did Unfriended, which I think you saw. Yeah, so so that's so he directed this.
Movie classic by the way, I'm Friended.
Yeah, it was good. It's just it's weird because like even like you know, these movies are like ten years old, and and John Chow is like searching his daughter's Tumblr profile for clues, like, dude, Tumblr, really.
Oh, think of it in twelve years, this move. But like, I can't believe this is what we thought. AI was right, you know what I.
Thought the the guy that his daughter was talking to on Instagram thought she was going to be playing a bigger role. Yeah, I thought he was going to be playing a bigger role. I should say so maybe a little bit of a red herring. Maybe not. I don't want to spoil.
Who's that boyfriend? By the way, is labeled in the cast as tattooed sleeves ball.
Yeah, well that's basically what it was. He was never referred to by name. Yeah. The I don't know what it was about about this, It just it just seemed like there was twists twist after twist, which I expected, yeah, but maybe not to this degree. And there was a there was a significant amount of people complaining in the reviews about how certain information was revealed to be too choppy and and and I'm not choppy. What's what's haphazardly? I think is what I heard? And I'm like, dude,
I kind of like that. You know, there is that shot of the open door on the Instagram post, right, and then that kind of zero's in on what's behind that, Like you couldn't really tell exactly, but you knew it was something like I like that. I don't want to be hit over the head with that information.
And what oftentimes gets lost in these movies. If I woke you up hungover in a chair that you can't get out of and you find out you have ninety minutes to live, you know what you're gonna be doing haphazardly running through all the information. Yeah, like the fact that he was even as calm as he was. There was a moment early early early on in the movie where he even goes from like very frazzled to call him very quickly, And I'm like, I don't buy that.
But then I was like, well, he's a cop, so maybe I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
And I'll say this too, like you know, you say hungover, the AI judge said something like her basically still drunk. He's still still drunk, but not maybe legally sure speaking, Yeah, so he could stand trial for that now, Chris Pratt,
it seemed like had a lot of his character. Chris Raven had a lot of experience with operating you know what they call functional alcoholism where you can still you know, be drinking and be drunk but still be So it seemed like he had a lot of experience with that, oh for sure.
Yeah, Yeah, that was definitely an interesting element. And I do want to say because you said Chris Raven with that inflection and like maybe I'm late to the party on this, and I'm not. I still enjoy him as an actor, but I do have to say this, he's just star Lord and everything. He's one of those actors that gets by on charisma and isn't really an actor, Like he's just fun to listen to read dialogue and this was like star Lord gets accused of.
You know what, he d kind of reminded me of his character in Passengers with Jennifer Lawrence.
Actually never saw that one.
I'm familiar with the plot, yeah, but I mean that's that's like another thing too where it's like, you know, futuristic, you know, and there's a lot of stuff going on that we can't really comprehend.
Yeah, and didn't he take a lot of heat for that one because it portrayed as romantic but it was actually like super messed up that he like woke someone up their sleep.
Yeah. But then but then there's some sort of like like, uh, there was as like a full circle kind of romantic aspect of that, which I mean, you could make the case that she didn't really have a choice. I think that's a lot of people, but I mean, but but but still, I mean, I guess she could have chosen to we're spoiling passengers now, she could have chosen to live in misery and anger for her she chose not to.
Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. But yeah, I never saw that flick. But I feel like he's just the same in everything, uh that that he's in other than maybe like the Mario movies, he sounds a little more.
Like so yeah, which he got a lot of heat for that too, or Chris Pratt, and I think he's a conservative. I'm pretty sure he's a pretty pretty staunch conservative. And he married into the Schwarzenegger family too, you know. So that's the other aspect. So as as much as Marvel has done for him, he does a lot for the other side here.
Yeah, he takes a lot of heat. He takes a lot of heat for stuff, that's for sure. But I couldn't get past that. It felt like star Lord. And I don't want to take away from Rebecca Fergusson because she did the part the way she was asked to do it, but it just, you know, it felt like an AI robot and like to me, and again it's not the movie that it was, but like I like like the Judge dread style of doing like I don't
care if you're guilty or innocent, did you do the crime? Okay, I'm going to execute you, whereas this was much more clinical, Like it was.
Just very very dry. But it was good.
It was she felt like she wasn't a real person, which I guess is the goal. But it was a strange.
All right, I'm gonna be honest with you. I think that she reflected on significant amounts of humanity while probably the parts you were sleeping. But I like, at the end, I'm like, this is not I don't know if this is, but maybe that's what they were going for too. Sure were you awake for the portion where they have the the sort of like race bomb race car? Okay, if it didn't detonate in the in the film, and I'm not saying it didn't, I'm not saying it did. Who
was responsible for that? Oh? Yeah? Because he shot her a look and she kind of gave it a look back to him. And I was like, oh, are we to understand that AI could control because the officer who released the bomb the result of what happened on that he seemed genuinely surprised.
Yes, I agree, And there were several moments in that movie and I realized anybody in law enforcement will tell you lie detector tests and those certain those certain measures to determine guilt are not evidence of innocence or guilt. But I oftentimes wonder, because any expert will tell you when you're lying, your pupils will do a certain thing, breathing goes a certain way, There's certain biomess.
Cover your mouth. That's another.
But even like there, there there's physical elements. I mean, there's like there's elements that go.
With law that you literally cannot control. It's a subconscious thing.
And like if you didn't do it, if you woke me up, you can tell when you're accusing me something I didn't do versus something I did. I did do, but I want you to believe that I didn't do. You could tell the difference, And like that was what was sticking out to me very similarly to what you're talking about. There, there's a there's an element to it that I feel like just kind of skips over. It's like your nostrils flaring and like like those elements of it that you can't at least as far as I'm
aware you you really can't control. And I'm interested why they I mean, it's just you know, it's too much to write her around at that point. But like I was waiting for those metrics, Like as soon as I woke up and you're tell me ninety seven point five percent guilt I killed someone that I remember, I'd be.
Like, bullshit, yes, what are you talking about?
Like immediately you'd know, like Okay, this guy's defending himself in a way that makes me think maybe we don't have the right guy.
But but can Maddox, who is the judge, can she make that call? Yeah, because she reiterated several times. All she can go by is the facts, Yes, And while nostrils being flared and pupils being dilated are usually a pretty significant tell of whether a person's lying or not, there could be other reasons why the nostrils flare or whether the pupils dilate. Sure, So that's why I think that that that that thing was built and we found out it was not built with impeccable precision right throughout
the film. I think that's that that was never a thing in there, So that that I don't know. That's just kind of where I stand on on as far as what you're just talking about, the actual human human elements of it. There is a point probably well there's one point specifically, but there's probably a couple of points while he's quote unquote on trial where he seems resigned to the fact of like, look, I got really blackout drunk. I don't remember a lot of what happened. Maybe I did do this.
You know, I tries to talk him out of which I found that little.
Yeah, I thought that was weird too. That was weird. That was very weird that like you're losing focus and and uh, if you admit guilt, that this trial's over and I kill you, you know, or you get killed. I don't know if the AI actually does it, but it was like that episode of you never watched King of Queens, did you? Yeah? Okay, there's an episode where Doug and Deacon and Carrie and Kelly and uh, Danny
the cousin. They're all at this wedding and Danny's getting super drunk because the bride is a woman he used to date, and Doug ends up taking one of those disposable cameras in the bathroom and takes a picture of his genitals. Yeah, and he blamed it. Gets he doesn't blame it, but it gets blamed on Danny when these these photos are revealed, and then he starts thinking, you
know what I mean, I was pretty drunk. Maybe I did do it, you know, And and so like there's that aspect of it, which is why I crept into my mind, like maybe he actually did do it. And and the story is going to go somewhere else with this, which it spoiler free. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't.
This is a true to the life of Ben Kommono's story. I had a buddy who lived in a house to three doors down from me in the city. We go out with a third friend of ours, and the guy who owns the home gets absolutely obliterated, like, go to the bathroom somewhere that isn't the bathroom in the house.
Kind of obliterated, and the two of us were still awake, and we decided to prank him, and we went into his living room and turned everything upside down, and then the next morning we told him he did it, and the rest, like to this day, if you met him, he's still he would be.
Yeah.
One day I got so bombed that I turned all the furniture in my apartment upside down for reasons that I'll never fully comprehend.
And it's like, wow, No, absolutely not, And.
That happened in twenty eleven, and he still thinks that it happened.
Are you ever going to talk me? No, absolutely not. He does.
I don't know if he listens to this or not. I hope he doesn't. But it was a very like. He calls his girlfriend the next day. He's like, yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. We're sitting there and dying. We are absolutely holling. Yeah, and uh yeah, you get that bombed. You Really you could be talked into just about anything.
I think as far as uh, we won't, we won't give it away. The perpetrator, who the ultimate villain was in this movie? I thought it was obvious. Uh what? I thought it was obvious? But go on, okay, hold on. That's I was to ask you, did you ever think it was anybody other than that person? Did you ever have another guess? No?
And I have a reason why, But I feel like if I give the reason, it kind of gives it away. But it has nothing to do with the actual plot. It just has to do with watching a billion movies and it has nothing to do with the.
Actual with this with this particular actor. Nope, Okay no, Because I think you can make the case that this particular actor and the status of this actor's career, you might be like, Okay, well there could be something here. Now.
I'm very big on the misdirection element of things, and that's always my first go to move, is like when you want me to think it's something and you give me plenty of reason to think it's not something else, I'm like, okay, well I'm starting there and working backwards. Yeah, is kind of the way that I do these kind of things. And so I feel like this was one of those examples.
Did you Okay? Maybe this really irritated me. And I mean somebody they have to have somebody fact check this kind of stuff when they make these movies. So the first criminal that gets put to death on the Mercy Program, his name was David Webb, and they made a big deal out of that, and not a big deal, but significant, like bringing his name up or whatever. And I'm like, I think that this is gonna be relevant to the plot. You know, when they're talking the name David Webb, does
that ring any bells to you? Ben?
It doesn't.
David Webb was Jason Bourne's real name? Oh really? Yes? And it's revealed in the Born Supremacy or whatever the third one was, And it's revealed in that. So when they say David Webb, I'm like, why do you pick that name? Yeah? I mean this is not Born. I mean the Boorne stuff is still less than twenty years old, right, sure it was, like I mean, super rewatchable. I'm sure a lot of people have seen those.
I didn't make that jump though. I feel like there, I think maybe.
Those are those are higher in your in your Nobody who's working on this movie reads the name David Webbing, like, hey, can we pick a different name out? You know, it's not like it was picked for a purpose.
Again, it sounds like a criminal's name, like like, oh, it was David Webb.
Usually with a criminal you use the middle name too.
Sure, like that's assassin that that's that's what you get the middle name.
Well not well maybe, but like I always remembered in the first Fast and the Furious movie when uh who Paul Walker gets beaten up by Vin Diesel's crew and Dominic Turetto pulls out his ID and looks at it and goes, Brian Earl Spilner, what are you a serial killer or something? You know?
No, yeah, that's always that you get the third name once you try, you know.
Yeah. What I loved about this and this is a classic I mean kind of who done it? After the fact that they've already charged somebody for it. So many twists, so many turns and the reveal of it information. It was super fast paced too, you know where I felt like I wasn't my mind wasn't catching up with everything. I would love to watch this, not not now, but sometime in the future, like when it hits streaming or
if it's on tel. I would love to watch this again because I feel like there is there's a good amount of stuff I missed, you know, sure in this.
And I do want to be clear me falling asleep is not an indictment like I've been going to bed at five pm all week. I'm thirteen hours behind Wisconsin time right now. It was a very quick paced movie, and I was into elements of it, but it would it would be lost if I didn't mention. I was speaking our fellow coworker, Jason Slade, is a big movie person and oftentimes gets down to for the Tuesday movies
as well. He caught Mercy last week, okay, and I was asking him, was like, should be I'd be excited about it? He said, I'm perfectly honest with you. I nodded off for about ten or fifteen minutes in the middle of that movie. I just I don't get it.
I like I'm a I'm a unicorn in this one. I'm all alone on my own eyland. But like except for all the except for all the audience score, the popcorn score.
That's what I'm saying. I really don't want it to sound like I wasn't into it or or that, like, I don't even think it dragged really. I think I was always like, Oh, I wonder what's gonna happen next, Like I was into what was going on there.
It was anetic pace. They it was almost like they call these screen life movies. Have you heard of this term? No, Like where a movie is like basically taking place like within the confines of one screen. Sure, similar like Unfriended. I think that that there was another one too.
Even the War of the World's with ice Cube was.
That, yeah, exactly, And and so for a good portion of this it was like a screen. You know, he was constantly on it, basically was on a screen the whole time. But because of the AI, he was like in the middle of like the crying scene or something you know going on.
It's like kind of like when Tony Star like is living in his like he has the yeah, the stuff going on all around him.
For his computer. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, And for the record, I do love those kind of movies even without the screens like phone Booth or if you ever saw Buried with Ryan Reynolds, Like these are good movies in the place, in one place.
So so buried, Like I can't I can't watch. I mean like that, I'm I said I was. I flew to Kentucky for the Super Bowl this past weekend and my flight on Friday morning was delayed. We sat on the runway for ninety minutes and I wasn't in first class. I was in coach, and I didn't feel all that great. It was super early in the morning. Normally I deal well with okay, like I'll comfy, cozy. No, after a while, I'm like this sucks, you know, like I gotta get out of here. So the whole aspect of Buried to
me is like I can't that. That's too much, that's too much stimulation. And the spoiler alert for Buried, the ending, in my opinion, sucks fantastic. No, yeah, it is awful. Oh, because yeah.
The whole thing's a meta four for living with anxiety, which I which I you know, I deal with that. I bite my nails. I'm a pretty anxious cat, okay, And you watch that and like there's a lot of elements of it where he like intentionally does they Like they tell him early on in the movie, They're like, make sure you close the screen on your phone to
conserve battery life for as long as possible. And then like eventually, like forty minutes later, he's almost like intentionally leaving the screen on and like the self defeatist attitude that comes from it. I'm like, this is a deep fucking movie for being a movie about a guy in a coffin for ninety minutes. Yeah. I love that kind of stuff. So movies like this oftentimes appeal to me. I liked Phone Booth too. It's a stupid movie. I
love Phone Booth. Anytime Phone Booth is on, I watch it calling Farrell Key for Sutherland Banger bang Man on a Ledge Banger.
I love Man on a Ledge. That is great.
What's the one with George Clooney and Julie Roberts Money Monster, Money Monster, Money Monster's pretty good? Yeah like that kind of stuff. Yeah, I'm all about that. So this just kind of is another one in that list of movies.
That's fine. But I the col claustrophobic aspect of burying something can't. I can't. I don't believe to the end. I don't want to spoil you. I had I had to see it. I mean I can't. I was invest dude most movies, even if I don't like him, Like, I'm watching it all the way to the end. I told you my mother does not watch a movie or read a book unless she knows how it ends. I can't even imagine how angry she would be if she watched Barry, Just like if I like, hey, you're don't
like that, you're gonna like this movie? Watch Barry and then it and then that that ending, and she'd be like, she'd never talk she would not talk me for a month. I guarantee you that. Okay, there was one other aspect that wanted to bring up with this that didn't make sense to me that I thought was kind of stupid. Oh no, it didn't. It wasn't stupid. Were you surprised every time he called somebody like there is always an answer.
I mean they're showing like the phone ringing when he's calling his daughter, when he's calling Rob, when he's calling his partner, they always picked up. People don't always pick up. And I understand it's a movie, but especially in the movie I was waiting for like even one time they were like on his daughter's phone for forever. I'm like, oh, she's not going to pick up, oh right, and then she did.
One guy didn't pick up. He answers, He's like.
Oh, but but but no, everybody answered. There is not like one call that went to boy SmaI. That's my point, that's my yeah, okay, yeah, no, I can go with your void is.
But yeah, I think it's just because you know, you can't unless it were part of the plot, right that you that information maybe was super pertinent and you had to wait till later to get it. That would have been the only reason for that to happen.
I know. The other dumb thing that I said, I said, this is so stupid. There is a photo that is is reference towards the end of a character in the story, and Chris Pratt said, Hey, that's someone else's arm in that photo with that person. We need do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I think so we need
to find out who else is in that photo. And I'm like, dude, I mean like, how many photos are you in where where just there's like stuff gets cut off or like it just could be some but somehow this arm was gonna be the key to breaking this wide. And then of course, because it's Ai, we can do whatever we want. So AI locates who this person was in this photo and found out who they were. Yeah, so I'm I mean, it's a lot, It's it's a lot, and this is this is one of the things. Like
I was telling Sturfry about this at work. I'm like, I love this movie, but man, you gotta suspend disbelief for for most of it because there was some hokey ways to collect to connect dots in this.
Yeah, it was a very uh in my opinion, it was like a low budget Minority Report.
But like, to me, oh my god, there's a there's so many references to Minority Report in this movie on the Internet right now, Like there's i think even on the Wikipedia page there's a whole section about the comparisons to Minority reput Yeah, because it's very, very similar.
Absolutely it had Minority Report. There's Judge Dread in this. There's a handful of movies that I'm like, oh, yeah, this seems like it took like the ideas of five movies, merged them together in a unique way that I think hit in a lot of ways. And I'll be honest, just because I talk about surveillance so much on my radio show, they're like a lot of it didn't feel contrived to me that it was able to do it because so much of our lives is recorded and available
and able to find. I've been watching there's this woman, this Guthrie woman who's been kidnapped.
Right, Okay, now hold on before you get to this. This is my insensitive Yeah, this is my insensitive comment of So NBC had the Super Bowl, Yeah, and we're watching towards the end, and I'm at this I'm at this casino where we got this huge lounge rented out, and I had a few bourbon Old Fashioners in me or whatever, and I just kind of casually turned to
the people sitting around me. NBC postgame show, We've found Savannah Guthrie's mother, like it's it's it would be the all time and and we're and then we're gonna go to the Olympics after that, you know what I mean. And got a FEUs but a few people are.
Like maybe, but I say all that to say, this morning there was a big break in the case. Was a break some dude, one of the dudes involved, shows up with a ski mask, shows up where in front of the door today.
Yeah, he came back to the scene of the crime.
In the evening and he's so stupid, like he didn't even account for there being a camera, and you see him like trying to put shrubbery up in front once he's been seen. And I've been watching interviews all morning with with FBI people saying like, Okay, now that we've seen he's wearing this brand of jacket, we're gonna look around for this brand of jacket and where it's been bought,
and can we find that jacket without the mask. We're gonna be monitoring his gait because he has this strange hitch where he walks, and we're gonna see where we can find that hitch in camp on the right. Now, how do we know that this is a guy that he's wearing a ski mask and he's like up in the like like he walks up to it. You can tell he's clearly like, oh shit, there's a camera right here.
That doesn't mean, he's was one of the kidnappers, Ben Ben. There's a lot of weird old crazies in this world, okay, Finn. The fact the fact that so number one, I alay said, number one, number two, How do they not have people watching this house like staking it out.
I don't get it either, man, But like, and you
may be right, Okay, I shouldn't jump to the conclusions. But the fact is the way the FBI was listing the litany of ways that like, you're able to find this guy with no identifiable markers, no real like it's like they saw a tattoo and they were like, we're gonna like it's just all vague things that you're gonna use other people's cameras, other receipts, other things like that in order to find So the idea that you could see the arm of a person and find someone, I'm like, well.
So so just just yeah, I know it was that part of stupid I want to get back.
No I'm saying it's doable, Like I'm saying, I'm just like, it's really not.
It wasn't even a current photo. It was a photo from like thirty years ago. Dude, Like it's I mean, how it's it was so ridiculous, I can't believe. All right, so so so this guy just walks up to the Guthrie mother's house. Yeah, front door, I think, so to do what.
I don't know. Again, this was happening as I was coming to work this morning.
This was like this totally this, this is just something to throw throw them off the chase.
You see, everyone else is looking at it the other way. I was watching FBI people say, you know, I thought this was a pretty high end operation, and now I'm starting to question what other mistakes they're making if they were this stupid, if this is.
A high end if this is not a high end operation, this looks really poorly on the FBI, really poorly. This is a bunch of shlubs. Oh you haven't caught him yet. Ah No, they're really good. What you can't talk out of both sides of your mouth. That's a good point. Either they're really good or they're really or you're really stupid. That's that's It's one or the other.
Nancy got three doorbell video shows person and mask and gloves outside of the home. And this was released like at three o'clock in the morning.
Now, it was released, But do we know that this happened after? Like could this have happened before she was kidnapped? But I don't rotate it. Yeah, it doesn't matter, yea. So is it possible that this was recorded before she was taken and that they've just released it to the public now.
It doesn't seem like it because it was accompanied with a whole bunch of breaking breaking.
Right, because they just the FBI chose to.
Release Okay, maybe maybe who knows.
I don't That's That's what I'm Okay, Yeah, anyway, I don't know what we got on the.
Because this was this was my proof that like a lot of the quote unquote contrivances of mercy maybe aren't as contrived as we think. Yeah, because like I was listening to them parsed through how they operate, and I'm like, man, I wouldn't have considered a lot of this stuff, right, But I mean, like.
Chris Raven, like he he he like didn't even he didn't even hesitate. He's like, hey, there's somebody else in that photo that this is, you know, Like to me, it's just like, really, yeah, this is I don't know. It seemed again a little bit lazy. Okay, what else did I want to say about this? About the twists? Okay, so you know what the final twist was in that scene? Okay,
did you see that coming? Now? See this? I kind of did not till the very yet, not not not to the very yet, because I did not suspect this person, that character to be in on it. But there was a part there was there was a portion where this character was trying to shoot somebody and I was I was like, why is that character so hell bent? And then there was another thing that happens where that character was the catalyst for somebody else potentially dying, right, And
I'm like, okay, that's that's that. This is the same character that was And then at the very end, when that character is blatantly shooting an unarmed character, like yeah, I'm like, dude, this is I know exactly what's about to happen here. And and then it was and then it was revealed and and and it was fine. It was It was a cool twist at the yeah it was, but I did see, Like, but you did at what point did you realize what was going on? Then? I did?
Oh? So the like the like the original twist dude, it was so early.
On Again, I know that I know that I'm talking about the final one.
I didn't see that like by like, oh.
Because you had to read it. Yeah, so where you're where you're read it and you're like.
Huh, yeah, it came out of nowhere. But yeah, and again I can't stress enough. It's not because I like the movie is entertaining enough to maintain your interest to the end.
Yes, yeah, unless you're thirteen hours behind. Yes. Yeah.
So for the record, I left the theater. I drove the ten minutes back to my apartment, and I immediately fell back asleep until the following morning.
Like it's not even like I would have gone on I would have gone I would have not left that theater until I went on the internet to find out what happened, and then went on the internet to see if there's a post credits.
Yeah you know, yeah, let's uh because I feel like we're rapping soon. But I do want to see because you had some fun.
Okay, just real quick, just real quick. I want to get to those reviews. Yes, I do want to do Okay, so with all those other movies you mentioned, Money, Monster, manon a Ledge. Yeah, but I feel like this is going to fall right in with those I agree.
I agree that that's what I'm saying. I like these kind of movies. So like, again, I don't Jason Slade Falling Asleep. I can't comment one way or the other.
But I don't know enough about his movie taste.
Yeah, so okay, me falling asleep was completely a matter of circumstance and not. And again, I normally catch these things at like one o'clock in the afternoon, but this didn't have a lot of theaters, so I wasn't there until five o'clock, which to me, five o'clock this time is four in the morning in Bangkok time. So I'm just like, all right, I'm freaking tired at this point.
It's so critical response. I want to review. To read a few of these reviews websites consensus for Rotten Tomatoes, constricting its two stars inside an airless presentation of a clunky techno thriller premise Mercy is tedious enough to make you cry. Uncle, what I did not get that at all? Yeah, okay, now hold on, now hold on, there's more. Um Okay, it's not like this is radhean Simone Palai from Globe
and Mail. It's not like the premise isn't intriguing, It's just that the result is the kind of soulless response you'd expect from AI. Should it be prompted to make a screen live version of Minority Report with some elements from Speed. The Speed was another one that we didn't bring up. There's I think there's a lot of aspects of them that was not accurate. Soulless soulis come on.
No, so, I will say. And it kind of ties into if you are a fan of movies for the art. As I mentioned, Chris Pratt is not an artist. He is just a charismatic, handsome dude that is fun to watch lead Amoss and if that's not your cup of tea, Like I watched Mickey seventeen and that's starring Robert Pattinson who also played Batman. He completely disappears in Mickey soon really like he does it in a way that I'm like, holy crap, how is he talking?
Like cloning is a cloning movie? Or what's what's the yeah, I heard of it.
He's essentially referred to as an expendable and he to escape a debt that he owes the mob. He goes into a space colony and signs up to essentially die over and over again to test diseases. And they download your memories and thoughts to a database. And every time he's Mickey seventeen because he died, they like expose him the radiation just so as he's dying, he can talk about when he loses his vision, when his skin burns, and they do all these off things and you die,
and Mickey seventeen kind of escapes that death. And it's where I'm we messed up, because I remember you proposed watching him No, no, no, I.
I proposed watching Mickey Supreme. Yeah with Timothy Shallice.
Okay, Mickey seventeen, which I think is done by the same guy that did Parasite. It's either Parasite or snow Piercer. Either way, I like those movies. Oh my god, Sleeper HiT's available on Hulu or HBO. Can't recommend it enough if you guys have those streaming service. Yes, but but yet I go back to my main point to these guys. When they call it soulis, when they call it a cash grab, I do get like from a from an acting perspective, I think, Chris, there are.
Some empty calories. Yeah, for sure. All right. The last review I want to read Peter Howell from the Toronto Star. He does he's a movie critic there. He gives it a four star rating, you know, one two. He gives this one. You guessed it zero stars. Wow. Here's the quote. Lazily written, chaos, directed and played out with all the zest of a convenience store security video. It lacks not only vision and purpose, but the faintest hint of entertainment.
Oh come on now, listen.
You want to talk about how it was directed, you want to talk about how it was written. It's fine. Don't tell me, Peter Howell that you were not entertained at least a hint where you were entertained in this movie.
I will say, I like, I think you had the perfect description. If it were Saturday afternoon, a lazy Saturday at one pm and Mercy came on, I'd probably watch it every time it's on, you know what I mean, I'd be like, yeah, yeah, what the hell, this is fine, this is fine to put on in the background. Maybe catch the last twenty minutes so I can, you know, tell.
Them actually watch it?
Sure, yeah, exactly, but the idea there's no entertainment, you're just kind of being difficult.
This is entertaining. I liked it a lot, Yeah, a lot.
Yeah, I'm in the I'm in the six to six point five range.
One. I was thinking about this back and forth on my way over here. I'd made up my mind I was going to give it an eight and a half, and then I still, you know, with with some of the plot points and the hole not the plot points, but the holes and some of the again, kind of lazy is the wrong term, sloppy writing connecting some of these things. I'm like, I can't really give it an eight and a half, but I will give it an eight because again I brought this up at the top
of the podcast. I saw this late on a Tuesday night when I was tired. This is these are the kinds of movies I usually doze off. Never was even close Yeah to close me, I was. I was literally I was on the edge of my seat, literally like for for the last forty minutes of this, for sure, and I was definitely entertained by It's not gonna win any Oscars. You're gonna see a lot better directing and acting performances in other movies. The storyline was cool, right, it was timely, it was.
Fun, and yeah that's just it, dude. And at the end of the day, that's what it's about, right, Like.
We're going there to escape our own lives, right for an hour forty five or whatever. And I did it was great. Yeah.
I thought it was very captivating as well. It was an enjoyable experience. And I'm glad because after Jason's comments on it, I was getting ready to text you because our movie next week, Send Help.
Oh, I was gonna ask you if we're gonna do that. Yeah, that's fine.
It's currently the highest rated movie of twenty twenty six, really, and I was like, maybe I should just tell Balkey to skip this one. And I'm glad I didn't.
Mercy actually was the movie that dethroned Avatar finally, because Avatar was number one in the box office. But yeah, Send Help, I think is gonna be a lot of fun.
Yeah, yeah, Send Help. Looks like it's going to go to Sam Raimi's first R rated movie I think in twenty seven years, which.
Uh, okay, that's a long time. So this is maybe I didn't know this until I read it, and I think it's it's it's not spoiling anything, but it's cool to know this going in. Yeah, you know the premise of the movie. Okay, Rachel mcadam's character, I guess and maybe already know this, but her character in this movie is kind of like this mild mannered timid. She is a huge, massive super fan of the show Survivor.
Okay, Okay, the character, the character, the character, it's a huge.
And then you see what happens, right, and she's with this guy her Ba, Oh my god. And then and then you just like you just mentioned r rated. Absolutely there's gonna be so much cool stuff that happens in that.
Although I will say Drag Me to Hell is probably the grossest PG thirteen movie I've ever seen in real life, so I would probably like that probably should have been our. But Sam Raimi, he's my He's one of my goats. I freaking love him as a director. I think he's very unique in how he does things, and I'm very excited to see I have high hopes for this one, and I hope I'm not disappointed.
I hope I'm not either, But I mean, I can't I mean, did you look at the tomatoes on this Nope? I I And you said, what did you say about this film?
That it was the highest rated film of twenty twenty six from from What's going on?
So I really don't think that we're gonna dislike this movie.
Yeah, yeah, all right, Well we'll see what happens there. Mercy though, check it out. I think it was worth checking, definitely for sure. And we'll talk to you guys next week