Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

GazerRise Fantastic!

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Paul Magne Haakonsen Personally I am not overly keen on murder mystery thrillers, much less police investigation movies. The reason for "Mercy" having a place in my DVD collection is because Julian Sands is in it. And I have had the movie for months before I got around to actually watching it.The story is fairly straight forward, as for being a murder mystery. However, there are some twists and plot turns here and there, letting the viewers in the dark and guessing as to who is the actual killer. Bit by bit, we are given pieces and hints as to whom it is, although I will say that my money was not on the actual killer, so that was a nice turn of events.Personally, I wasn't overly impressed by the movie, as it was generic and the story came off as forced and halting. And certain things throughout the movie were just so out there that they weren't believable. For example, why would detective Cathy Palmer let the murder suspect Vickie Kittrie into her personal home, socialize with her and even succumb to sexual advices? It was just so unprofessional behavior of a police officer that it was downright painful to behold. But hey, without it, there would be no movie, I suppose.Being a fan of Julian Sands and having seen most of his movies, it is always a thrill to see him in the quite often less than ordinary roles that he takes on. And his performance (and role) in "Mercy" is just that, another of the quirky roles that he executes well.Despite not being a fan of murder mysteries, then "Mercy" was actually quite interesting, if you can suffer through the obvious flaws and the slow pace the movie moves forward in. I had to give up at 50 minutes into the movie, and then continue watching the following day. The movie is mind-numbingly slow.Personally, I found that the movie had a little bit too much focus on the sexual nature of the storyline and used a bit too much screen time on showcasing the scenes."Mercy" deals with some pretty heavy issues, such as incest, S/M, bondage, transvestism, voyeurism, just to mention a couple of the aspects of the storyline. So it is a matter of personal preference whether or not the story is interesting or not. I found it a bit too much.The upside to the movie was the people they had cast for the various roles, whom did good jobs with their characters and their acting. Ellen Barkin (playing detective Cathy Palmer), Peta Wilson (playing Vicki Kittrie), Julian Sands (playing Dr. Dominick Broussard) and Karen Young (playing Mary) were really putting on some great performances, which made the movie just that much more tolerable to sit through.My overall impression of the movie was mediocre.

MBunge This movie is half "Basic Instinct on Prozac" and half "really retro take on lesbianism".Ellen Barkin portrays Detective Catherine Palmer, the weirdly lethargic lead investigator into a series of murdered women. The women are all left naked, hand across their chests, covered in bite marks and stab wounds. Searching for the killer, Catherine meets Vicky Kittrie (Peta Wilson), a mysterious woman who leads the detective into a world of lesbian social clubs, sadomasochism and childhood trauma. She also encounters Dr. Broussard, (Julian Sands), a psychotherapist who sleeps with his patients and has another rather odd habit. Catherine spends most of the film wandering around in a fog as bodies pile up and the story delivers clues to her on a silver platter, until we arbitrarily get a climax that is definitely different from what you get in most sex crime dramas.I would guess that Mercy is supposed to be an erotic thriller. It's about sex and there's certainly a goodly portion of nudity, but the movie is decidedly unsexy for the most part. There are a couple of girl-on-girl moments of seduction that are provocative, but most of the sex is unpleasant and most of the naked bodies are displayed in a detached, clinical manner. Sex as pleasure is in the minority and sex as compulsion, repulsion, loathing and self-loathing is in the majority.As far as the acting goes, Peta Wilson is fine and Wendy Crewson and Karen Young does as much as you can expect with their roles as patients of Dr. Broussard. Broussard himself is really more of a prop than a character, but Julian Sands tries hard. Ellen Barkin, though, gives a truly strange performance. Catherine Palmer seems to be either half-asleep, drugged or in some sort of emotional shock for most of the story. She also doesn't act anything like a cop. She plays Catherine more like a reporter, but not an aggressive beat report, more like one who writes those features for the Sunday style section. The story tries to suggest some depths to her character, but she'd have to be awake for the audience to care.Mercy is based on a book and I don't know how good of an adaptation it is, but I can tell you that it's poorly written for a movie. I t's about investigating a murder but there's no real mystery at work here. Catherine (and the audience) don't have to piece things together to figure out whodunit. S he doesn't really discover things, so much as stand by and observe things that happen without her involvement. Catherine is kept at a distance from the emotional or dramatic actions in the story, which combined with her sleepy persona makes this a very sedate thriller. The first half of the film is also filled with scenes with Dr. Broussard and his patients that seemingly don't have anything to do with the murder mystery, but you automatically know that it's all going to tie together somehow. So when it does, it's not surprising or engaging. It's predictable and mechanical.I should also warn any actual lesbians out there to be wary of this film. The story STRONGLY associates same sex attraction among women with fathers sexually abusing their daughters, as in one results from the other. So, if you don't want to be told your orientation is caused by mental and emotional sickness, you should probably skip this movie.Mercy isn't a stupid movie. However, that's about the strongest praise I can give it. It's a (not so) erotic thriller where Ellen Barkin gets her name above the title, but is the only major female character who never gets naked. If that sounds like something you'd really be interested in…maybe you need to see a psychotherapist.

highwaytourist This was a sordid and dreary mess. I needed a shower when it was over. It goes something like this- some socialites are murdered and a woman homicide detective is assigned to the case. She discovers that the victims belonged to an underground lesbian society, and she befriends an associate of the group who may have relevant information. Since the detective is an attractive woman, of course she is horny and intrigued (which reveals much about Hollywood and its psychosis about women). What's surprising is that none of this is very sexy or interesting, just depressing and yucky. Ellen Barkin gives a respectable performance as the lead detective, and Julian Sands provides unintentional laughs as a cross-dressing psychiatrist, which is why it escapes a one-star rating.

res0owwh WARNING - POSSIBLE SPOILER!This movie can leave one with feelings of darkness and insignificance. It deals with the heart of sexual abuse and the radiating damage it can cause and contribute to.The main character is on a self-destructive path and has no control over it and no knowledge of how to gain that self-control. She was wise to leave at an early teenage the abusive home in which she grew up, but it was not soon enough to undue the damage. More than likely, it would have taken years of self-searching to fix the damage.In her case, her use and/or addiction to cocaine and sexuality were direct results of sexual abuse and the emotional unavailability of her parents (total disregard for life and human beings, as well as ignorance, itself). I doubt that Lucifer himself would want the main character's father in his camp. The guy appeared to have no soul, nor the mother for that matter. The brother was another victim of the mind-set or lack-of-mind-set, only knowing what he had learned, and what he had learned was from an extremely limited scope (remote country-side existence). In all likelihood, the father and the mother were reared in the same types of circumstances, therefore, their behaviours "seemed normal" to them. The case AGAINST DENIAL.There was one positive scene in the movie at the end when Ellen Barkin legally removed the younger sister from the environment. Although, statistically speaking, that was probably just a "temporary fix".The movie is classified as "fiction with a purpose" - it teaches about humanity and the problems which humanity has faced and continues to face at a highly escalating rate. It will open eyes, if we allow it to.