Mercy
Directed by Tony Dean Smith
Written by Alex Wright
Starring: Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jon Voight, Leah Gibson
Unrated
Runtime: 1 hour, 25 minutes
In Select Theatres and On Digital May 19 and On Demand June 2

by Gary M. Kramer, Staff Writer

The B-movie Mercy, about an escalating hostage situation that unfolds in a hospital, contains plenty of fights, gun violence, and explosions, but it is hardly edge-of-your-seat stuff.

Captain Michelle Miller (Leah Gibson) is a doctor at Mercy hospital, following two tours of duty in Afghanistan. Her military career ended when she had to operate on her husband who had a bomb strapped to his chest. (It exploded.) Now, Dr. Miller just wants to take her son Bobby (Anthony Bolognese) to a soccer game for his birthday. However—or, of course!—just as she is finishing her shift, Ellis (Sebastien Roberts), a rookie by-the-book FBI agent, comes in with two men needing medical attention—one of whom is Ryan Quinn (Anthony Konechny), an asset Ellis needs to bring down the Quinn gang.

Ryan was shot by his brother, Sean (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) in an ambush. Sean was hoping to protect the family from criminal charges but may also have wanted to usurp some power. The situation forces patriarch Patrick (Jon Voight) to stop giving his dog alcohol on the golf course and head to Mercy to get his son back—if he is still alive. Ellis, of course, wants to keep his asset safe, and, with Dr. Miller’s help, they try to keep Ryan from being located.

The action is more of the cat-and-mouse variety, with characters lurking around corners and surprising each other, as when Dr. Miller uses her combat skills “from her past life” to disarm one of Quinn’s men who is hoping to find (and silence) Ryan. Another episode has Frank (Marc-Anthony Massiah), a member of the hospital security team, caught trying to disable a video feed by one of Quinn’s men. But neither of these scenes generate much in the way of tension.

Mercy also features surgeries both necessary—Dr. Miller removes an exploding bullet from Ryan’s body—and unnecessary, as when Patrick removes his henchman Danny’s (Mark Masterton) ear because he didn’t listen to his command to “do nothing,” and made a bad situation worse.

The film eventually become a showdown between Dr. Miller and the Quinns as Bobby is seized by Danny and offered up as a swap—Dr. Miller’s son for Ryan. But first, Sean has to battle with his overbearing father. The best moments in the film are two fights between Sean and Patrick, the first verbal, where each man gets his back up, and then physical where the two men come to fisticuffs.

Rhys Meyers and Voight (who previously costarred in last year’s Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders) get to chew the scenery acting all tough, which yields a modicum of pleasure. Rhys Meyers plays cocky through most of the film—especially when he threatens to “ice pick the spines of every hostage” if the police move in on him. But he really amps things up against Voight in part because he has someone to play against. Voight, is alternately kind and menacing. His performance is like his Irish accent—it comes and goes.

Mercy efficiently dispatches its expendable characters, from Quinn’s henchmen, one of whom is electrocuted, to one of Dr. Miller’s colleagues, who is blown up using a bomb. But the various deaths are not very inventive or exciting. Nevertheless, they are far more involving than a peculiar scene featuring Captain Miller being saluted on the hospital’s rooftop by the FBI agents monitoring the hostage crises from outside as patriotic music swells.

As Dr. Miller, Leah Gibson is an engaging protagonist, but she seems underused; much of the action involves the men fighting, and Jon Voight is obviously slumming here. In support, Jonathan Rhys Meyers and Mark Masterton as the film’s hotheaded characters provide some verve.

But the few bright spots cannot save the undistinguished Mercy from being a forgettable thriller.