Code Mercury

There are two great acting performances in this film. Bruce Willis plays Art Jeffries, an FBI agent with attitude. Miko Hughes plays Simon Lynch, an autistic savant with a gift for codebreaking. Both are believable but Miko Hughes is astonishing – one of the best ever screen performances by a child. The scenes between the pair of them are really touching and you can believe that Willis really likes kids. Perhaps he does.

The US government's pursuit of Lynch in this film may at first appear overly far-fetched and scaremongering. Then you remember the US attitude towards the British savant, Gary McKinnon, who was accused of perpetrating the biggest military computer hack of all time by hacking into 97 US military and NASA computers in 2002. Well, they didn't kill his mum and dad, and hunt him like an animal. But after 10 years of attempted extradition, and speculation of a 70-year jail term, maybe this story is just an exaggeration of reality, and not quite as ridiculous as some commentators have suggested.

It's not really a downside but if you come to this film expecting a shoot-em-up action movie, you may be disappointed. It's much more than that and consequently slower – it's a touching drama with action scenes, and so we can forgive, just about, the pace through the middle of the film. The writing is actually very good and Pearson, Konner and Rosenthal all deserve credit.

I did find the score a bit distracting. Sort of 'too big' and too 'James Bond' for the film. Scenes without music were better. Though the music being played at the club Jeffries visits was really good and I would have liked to have heard more of Koko Taylor (now no longer with us) belting out some blues.

I was finding it difficult to see where this film was going. When Wills is with a kid, like in 16 blocks or Die Hard 4, you expect a visible end point, and there wasn't one. There was a sense of going around in circles. Until the last 5 minutes. Ultimately that cost it a couple of stars and the score lost another one. So seven out of ten for this.

Mercury Rising is a very conventional "government bad guys" story about evil agents out to kill an autistic boy who can break their top code. Of course, the premise of the movie, that the government would rather kill someone who can break their code rather than fixing the problems with the code, is incredibly stupid. If one boy can break the code, isn't is reasonable that some other boy in Russia or wherever can also break it? If it has a flaw that allows the kid to find the pattern, doesn't it need to be fixed? Of course, not. We just kill the kid and pretend nothing ever happened.

But, what is really sad is that there is a grain of truth in this story. It is the policy of the US Government that TRYING to break codes is illegal. If you are smart enough to figure out that the DVD encryption has a major flaw, it's not the fault of the designers, it's your fault. Researchers who have discovered flaws in codes, watermarks, etc, have been arrested. This "head in the sand" policy has been around for a long time.

So, next time you see this movie, just think how easy it would be to combine this attitude with someone a bit too gung ho.

Not a very great movie, but it's entertaining and keeps the interest, despite its flaws which aren't that few. But still it deserves a positive feedback from me and I guess my rating is fair.

Even though this is another Bruce Willis's action-flick, at least this one isn't excessive on that matter, it has a story: Bruce Willis portrays Art, an FBI agent who protects Simon, a boy who is 9 years old and is autistic. Some criminals want to silence the boy after he deciphered a super-difficult code named "Mercury" and Art's mission is to make sure he doesn't get assassinated.

Since the movie is mostly about the FBI agent and the autistic boy and their chemistry, there should be more touching moments. But at least the ending has a tender scene when Simon hugs Art.

Bruce Willis won the 1999 Golden Raspberry for his performance. Well, his acting may be nothing special, but certainly not deserving of a Golden Raspberry on this one.

On the other hand, Miko Hughes won the category of Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor at the 1999 Young Artist Awards. A very deserved tribute, his acting as Simon is superb (a difficult role for a child, which he masterfully portrays). I think he should have won an Oscar for Best Child Actor. Why does it always have to be the adults winning Oscars? Why can't children win them too?

This movie has one huge problem: *its basic premise makes no sense at all*. Killing the kid is in absolutely nobody's interest. His codebreaking skill would be of immeasurable value to the very people who are trying to kill him, while safeguarding the code without killing him would be fairly straightforward. This is so obvious that it essentially ruins the whole movie.

The rest of the movie is OK if you ignore that problem. The performances are generally good, and Miko Hughes is excellent as Simon. There is nothing here you haven't seen a dozen times before, but it's generally well done. It's not worth making any real effort to see this movie, but you probably won't have a bad time if you do.

I haven't read the novel that this is based upon. In fact, I didn't know there was one. This happened to be on TV, I had no set in stone plans, so I decided to give it a shot. I'm honestly not sure why this is rated so low. Sure, there are some clichés. Yes, the idea of the government putting out a hit(with rather sloppy killers, at that) on a kid for a code is silly(besides, what if another one cracks it? How high a body-count is acceptable, exactly?). Look past those aspects. I haven't watched anything else by this director except for Malice, which was also a nice piece of work. This is put together quite well, with the editing and cinematography building tension and doing a decent job of conveying Simon's "ability". I've had experiences with Autistic people of different ages and varied severity of condition, and the depiction here is convincing and fairly respectful(do note that far from all who have the syndrome are as distant and/or helpless on their own as seen here), and this serves to explain and demystify it a tad(certainly more than I remember Rain Man doing). Miko researched for his role, and he does a great job. Willis is good(when isn't he?), and they do well together. Baldwin is as delightfully detestable as we know he can be. There is a nice amount of talent in the cast, if not all of it is allowed to shine. Granted, there could be more action. There is a little brutal, bloody violence in this. I recommend this to fans of thrillers. 6/10