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A Masterpiece!

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

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.

I watched this turkey because Ellen Barkin is in it. Thanks, Ellen. This is a serial murder movie, Barkin is a cop. The victims arewomen who belong to an S&M group. Barkin has conflicted sexualfeelings. Get it? In it's best moments, it reminds you a little ofDressed To Kill but without the style, without the writing andwithout Michael Caine. Ellen Barkin ambles through the filmwearing a one-size-fits all expression that could come from asevere sleep disorder, a few reefers or from make-up that set uptoo hard, I couldn't tell. This film purports to tell the story from afemale perspective, and so if you are terribly interested in thisaspect of movie story-telling, you may find something here that Ididn't. I will confess by bias against preachy feminism in film. (Ihated The Piano, and I thought the Julianne Moore characterruined the second Jurassic Park movie.) And as for Julian Sands,he's going to wind up typecast like Anthony Perkins. Thetransvestite dancing scene is as funny as the "She Works Hard forthe Money" scene in The Birdcage. Too bad it wasn't played forlaughs.

The erotic ambiance of this film is overwhelming. The plot is sexually charged despite the fact that there is no overt sex depicted in the film. The nudity that is shown seems more for function than exploitation. Peta Wilson's performance is incredibly compelling and sensual. "Mercy" is worth seeing for her presentation alone. Add the somber mood of the film, the secret femme culture of rough sex that is explored, Ellen Barkin as a troubled detective, and what could have been merely an "B" Movie cop thriller becomes a special film that held me rapt from start to finish. Female protagonists dominate "Mercy". I think that is one of the key factors that make it so entertaining. It makes no apologies its depiction of its women being independent and living their own, albeit secret, lives. One learns gradually of this subculture as the erotic Vicki Kittrie reluctantly guides Detective Catherie Palmer through this dark, ethereal world in search of a killer. This is really a film worth enjoying. The acting is superb from one and all. The plot moves along with constant suspense, and the climax is gritty and real, yet stunning in its poignance. And that aura of the sensually erotic simply pervades every scene. I highly recommend "Mercy".

I have read the 28 most recent comments by various people regarding this movie and was surprised that no one mentioned the fact that the first victim, shown on the bed with the "missing eyelids", as the camera pans up and away from her face, blinks! Yes, BLINKS! I recorded it as it came on HBO this past weekend and when I saw this I literally had to replay it several times, focusing on one eye at a time to make sure that I was not seeing things! Of course, after that, it was hard to take the movie seriously although there were a few interesting and intense scenes with Julian Sands. Very disappointed and give it a 4 mostly due to the fact that the 1st victim blinks in one of the last frames as the camera pulls away from the body/face. Too bad.