Director: Harold Becker
Writer: Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal (Screenplay) Ryne Douglas Pearson (Novel)
Starring: Bruce Willis, Miko Hughes, Alec Baldwin, Chi McBride, Kim Dickens, Robert Stanton
Plot: Shadowy elements in the NSA target a nine-year old autistic savant for death when he is able to decipher a top secret code.
Tagline – Someone knows too much.
Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Mercury Rising starts as disgraced FBI agent Art Jeffries (Willis) finds himself drawn into a case of what is thought to be a missing child Simon Lynch (Hughes) an autistic 9-year-old who solved an unbreakable government code.
Nick Kudrow (Baldwin) wants this covered up, sending assassins to clean up any loose ends to make sure this secret code is safe, while Art isn’t going to let another child die under his watch.
Thoughts on Mercury Rising
Thoughts – Mercury Rising is an action thriller that will see a FBI agent doing everything in his power to protect an autistic young boy who has become a target of the NSA. The first thing that will need to be addressed is the way the autistic boy is addressed, being dismissed by most of the film, with language that would never be used or accepted today. Outside of this flaw in the film, we do get a great story that will give us an FBI agent that will do anything to make sure he does the right thing even if everyone else is trying to hunt him down, it will follow a traditional style of storytelling that we have seen many times before, with some people willing to help, while others look to get in the way. Bruce Willis is still in his good form as the agent doing the right thing, while Alec Baldwin will always make fore a strong political villain. The action is routine, with lots of shooting going on around which is held back on more than you would have imagined due to the struggles of Simon around the noises. This is one of the more underrated thrillers of the late 90s one that is entertaining throughout.
Final Thoughts – Mercury Rising is an intense entertaining thriller.
