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- Cat.no: PLFEC 37781
- Cert: 15
- Running time: 107 minutes
- Sides: 2 (CLV)
- Year: 1998
- Pressing: 1999
- Chapters: 34 (16/17+1)
- Sound: Dolby Surround
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Panavision)
- Price: £19.99
- Extras : Original Theatrical Trailer, plus trailers for The Nutty Professor and Apollo 13.
Director:
- Harold Becker
(The Boost, City Hall, Malice, The Onion Field, Sea of Love, Vision Quest)
Producers:
- Brian Grazer and Karen Kehela
Screenplay
- Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal
(based on the short story “Simple Simon” by Ryne Duglas Pearson)
Music:
- John Barry
Cast:
- Art Jeffries: Bruce Willis (Armageddon, Blind Date, Color Of Night, Death Becomes Her, Die Hard 1-3, The Fifth Element, The Jackal, Last Boy Scout, Last Man Standing, Pulp Fiction, Striking Distance, Twelve Monkeys)
Nick Kudrow: Alec Baldwin (Dress Gray, The Edge, The Getaway, Heaven’s Prisoners, The Hunt For Red October, The Juror, Malice, The Shadow)
Simon Lynch: Miko Hughes (Zeus and Roxanne)
Thomas ‘Bizzi’ Jordan: Chi McBride
Stacey: Kim Dickens (Zero Effect)
Stayes: Peter Stormare (Armageddon, Fargo)
Mercury Rising stars Bruce Willis as renegabe FBI agent Art Jeffries who finds himself in the middle of a botched operation to get some information from a bunch of rednecks. Just as he’s about to contain the situation and get what’s required, the overzealous US Army go in all-guns-blazing and kill everyone, apart from Willis of course, including a young lad which continues to haunt him. Bruce marches outside and thumps his boss for sending the troops in when they weren’t required, which means that he’s off any future operations and will only get desk jobs for the foreseeable future.
Elsewhere is an autistic nine-year-old boy called Simon (Miko Hughes) who has deduced that a puzzle book contains more than just a series of join-the-dots exercises, as one of them is a new $2 billion piece of encryption from the NSA (National Security Agency) code-named MERCURY. We get the impression that this is no more difficult than a simple “magic eye” puzzle, but the computer-like sound effects that accompanied this moment brought murmurs of disdain from my other half – at least that’s the polite way I can put it.
Back at the NSA, its Programme Chief Nick Kudrow (Alec Baldwin) meets with the two idiots who overplayed their hand by sticking the code in a “geeks puzzle book” to see if any “geeks” could solve it, without any regard for the security of the nation. Any normal boss would have sacked the pair on the spot, but Kudrow allows them to continue their work until they can find out where the boy lives and ensure that he is eliminated.
Before long, a mysterious man turns up at their house with some cock-and-bull story to get him in the door and promptly murders the parents. Due to some sloppy espionage tactics, the boy evades instant death and the bad guy has gone. Cue a prospectively dull job lined up for Art as he is assigned to look after Simon while the murder is solved.
What follows has the potential to be quite an entertaining actioner, but it falls into all the predictable traps from start to finish as Bruce protects the boy from certain death. Everywhere he goes there’s usually someone around intent on bumping them off, mostly it’s the same man, but there’s also a very brief cameo from Peter Stormare, last seen in Bruce’s 1998 summer blockbuster, Armageddon, as a hitman but things would have been improved if he had been the main man after Bruce and the kid. Those involved in the planting of the code get picked off the minute they start to say too much and after one brief meeting 90 minutes into the film between the two headlining actors, the next time they link eyes is at the end of the film on a rooftop and one will surely die. Given what I’ve summarised already, only a bookies intent on going bust would give odds on the outcome on whose brains would meet the pavement first.
Having had no experience of autistic children I don’t know if Miko Hughes’ performance is a worthy one but if it is, he doesn’t get to shine. He may as well be a walking ‘red cross’ with a sign attached saying “shoot me”, while Bruce dispatches as many people as possible to save his life. Of the rest of the cast, Chi McBride does himself no favours as Bruce’s reluctant partner Jordan, since he only gets to spend time pointing out that his renegade-like behaviour isn’t a good idea, but still does stupid things like lending him his car and asking for it back in good condition (so what do you think will happen?).
Kim Dickens plays Stacey, a girl Bruce meets in a cafe and immediately entrusts with the boy while pretending to go and get him a prescription. Since most of the characters we’ve met until then turn out to be anything but the genuine article, you begin to wonder if he’s completely mad to trust anyone but she’s fine with it and all I can say in defence of their relationship is that it doesn’t dissolve into the expected “let’s have sex within five minutes of meeting each other” scenario, which brings about the film’s only surprise.
The film would be difficult to watch in anything other than the the original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1 and it is that which is replicated here. The print used is a clean one, but looks a little soft overall.
The sound quality is fine, with some cracking surround sound used when gunfire and explosions burst out of the speakers. The reason this section doesn’t score five out of five though, is because, unlike what the trailer leads you to believe, such scenes are very few and far between and while there’s a score by music maestro John Barry, it leaves no impression on you at all and makes you wonder if he was having a bad week.
There are only 33 chapters to cover the 107 minutes of the film and mirrors the standard Region 1 DVD release. Coming after the film is the original theatrical trailer, plus those for two other films from Imagine Entertainment, The Nutty Professor and Apollo 13, both of which have been available on PAL Laserdisc for some time and reviews can be found on this site by clicking on either name.
Overall, if you liked this film and aren’t too bothered about extras, then it’s not a bad purchase in that respect, but it will have competition from the American Collector’s Edition DVD which has an anamorphic picture, 45 chapters, Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, a director’s commentary, a documentary with interviews from cast and crew, plus production photos and deleted scenes, but perhaps we can look forward to some of these when the film gets a DVD release in this country.
FILM : ** PICTURE QUALITY: **** SOUND QUALITY: *** EXTRAS: * ——————————- OVERALL: **½
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 1999.
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.