Mercury Rising is a 1998 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Harold Becker, the movie is based on Ryne Douglas Pearson's 1996 novel originally published as Simple Simon, which was the working title of the film. Willis plays Art Jeffries, an undercover FBI agent who protects a nine-year-old autistic boy, Simon Lynch (played by Miko Hughes), who is targeted by government assassins after he cracks a top secret government code.
The film is the first of two collaborations between Willis and Baldwin, the second film being Motherless Brooklyn.
The film was released on April 3, 1998. It received mostly negative reviews and grossed $93 million at the box office.
Plot[]
During a bank robbery hostage situation, undercover FBI agent Art Jeffries attempts unsuccessfully to negotiate for more time to defuse the situation. The FBI storms the bank killing the robbers and Art strikes the bureaucratic agent in charge, leading to his demotion to a desk job.
A nine-year-old autistic boy, Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes) is given a sophisticated puzzle book by his teacher. One puzzle is a message enciphered with a code called "Mercury". The ciphertext had been placed in the book by two National Security Agency cryptographers, Dean Crandell and Leo Pedranski, who created the new code which they believed no computer could decipher. Simon solves the code and phones a number included in the plaintext message. Leo and Dean report the situation to their boss, division chief Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kudrow. He severely rebukes the pair for their unauthorized actions, describing Simon and his abilities as a national security threat. Two assassins, Peter Burrell and Shayes, are deployed by Kudrow to terminate the boy and his parents, Martin and Jenny.
Posing as a police detective, Burrell gains entry to the Lynch household and unceremoniously shoots both Simon's mother and father with a silenced pistol. He is unable to find Simon himself when he searches the house. Upon hearing approaching sirens (Martin was able to call 911 before dying), Burrell stages a murder-suicide and is driven away from the house by Shayes.
Art is sent to investigate and finds Simon in a hidden crawl space in his bedroom closet. Simon is taken to a protection ward at the hospital. A nurse explains to Jeffries that autism doesn't mean "nothing gets through", it means "everything gets through", so he can get frightened or confused, especially by others' emotions, so he probably can't be questioned. Burrell impersonates a doctor and makes another attempt on Simon's life. The timely arrival of Art saves Simon, who sees through Burrell’s facade and flees the premises with the boy. Later, while on a train, Simon shows Jeffries his Picture Exchange Communication System cards with photos of his family. The agent adds one, writing "Art is a friend." Burrell’s partner, Shayes, tries to kill Simon, but Art intervenes. He struggles with the killer, eventually managing to knock him off the train and onto the tracks just before another locomotive passes, running Shayes over and instantly killing him.
The NSA, under Kudrow's direction, frames Jeffries as the kidnapper of Simon. However, fellow agent and friend Tommy Jordan doesn't believe the story. Art borrows Tommy's car and takes Simon back to his house. Simon again calls the telephone number written into the code and Art is able to talk to Crandell and Pedranski. Dean arranges a meeting via encoded e-mail at the Wrigley Building by the next morning. Art goes to the meeting, leaving Simon under the care of a woman in a coffee shop, Stacey Siebring. The agent and cryptographer meet and Crandell tells Jeffries about the Mercury and Kudrow, but is shot dead by Burrell before he can reveal everything.
Art returns to the coffee shop, and finds that Stacey and Simon have formed a friendship. The guys then leave, but narrowly escape another attack before meeting with Jordan who is now convinced after learning of the incident. Later, Jeffries and Simon go to Siebring’s house, asking if they can stay there. She reluctantly agrees.
Meanwhile, Leo, having learned Dean's fate, also tries to reveal Kudrow's unlawful actions by writing letters on a typewriter: one to Jeffries and a carbon copy for the Senate Oversight Committee, but Burrell tracks Pedranski down and murders him as well, confiscating the letters. However, the assassin overlooks Leo's carbon copies, which his girlfriend, NSA analyst Emily Lang, takes to the FBI. Tommy discreetly arranges for her to meet with Art to show them both the carbon copies; covered in Pedranski’s fingerprints, they become crucial evidence. After the meeting, Jeffries gives Siebring Jordan’s number in case of an emergency. Art then goes to Kudrow’s home during his birthday party, and demands that Kudrow announce on national TV that the Mercury Encryption Project is a failure.
Jordan, under Jeffries suggestion, arranges for Simon to go into the Witness Protection Program. After the meeting, the friends discusses the Witness Protection meeting by phone; their conversation is being monitored by Kudrow. Stacey and Simon leave her house for the pick-up point, while Tommy heads for the FBI Director's Office. There, Kudrow dissuades Lomax, the FBI Special Agent in Charge, revealing the fact that Jordan forged the witness protection documents.
After Kudrow leaves with him being in charge for the Witness Protection, Tommy shows the carbon paper evidence to Lomax and confirms that the fingerprint markings on it were Leo's, now fully validating the evidence against Kudrow. Jeffries, with Jordan and an FBI task force's help, sets a trap at the meeting spot. Armed with an M16 rifle, Burrell fires at the FBI squad who arrives to apprehend Kudrow, resulting in a shootout with Jordan protecting Stacey. Simon saves Art's life by retrieving his gun, and the battle ends with Burrell being slashed to death by glass shards and Kudrow being shot by Jeffries and falling to his death.
Art and Siebring later visit Simon (now living with foster parents) at his school. He embraces the FBI agent as a welcome friend, having finally accepted him as a person he trusts.
Cast[]
- Bruce Willis as FBI Special Agent Art Jeffries
- Alec Baldwin as Lieutenant Colonel Nick Kudrow
- Miko Hughes as Simon Lynch
- Chi McBride as FBI Special Agent Tommy Jordan
- Kim Dickens as Stacey Siebring
- Robert Stanton as Dean Crandell
- Bodhi Pine Elfman as Leo Pedranski
- Carrie Preston as Emily Lang
- L. L. Ginter as NSA Agent Peter Burrell
- Peter Stormare as NSA Agent Shayes
- Kevin Conway as FBI Special Agent-In-Charge Joe Lomax
- John Carroll Lynch as Martin Lynch
- Kelley Hazen as Jenny Lynch
- John Doman as FBI Supervisor Hartley
- Richard Riehle as Edgar Halstrom
- Chad Lindberg as James
- Camryn Manheim as Dr. London
- Jack Conley as Detective Jack Nichols
Production[]
Development[]
Barry Sonnenfeld was initially slated to direct the film, but due to commitments to Men in Black dropped out and was replaced with Harold Becker.[3]
Casting[]
Prior to Bruce Willis being cast, Nicolas Cage [3] and George Clooney were also considered for the lead.[4]
Release[]
Home media[]
Mercury Rising was released for VHS and DVD on September 15, 1998. The Collector's Edition and DTS versions for DVD were released in 1999. A Blu-ray with Multi-Format was released on September 14, 2010, and the Double Feature with the film and The Jackal was also released for Blu-ray on March 22, 2011.
Videos[]
Mercury Rising Trailer (1998)
Official Trailer
Reception[]
Box office[]
The film earned $10,104,715 in its opening weekend in 2,386 theaters. Altogether, the film grossed $32,935,289 in the United States and $60,172,000 internationally for a total of $93,107,289.[2]
Critical response[]
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a score of 21% based on reviews from 57 critics with an average rating of 4.37/10. The consensus states: "Mercury Rising lays the action on thick, but can never find a dramatic pulse to keep viewers -- or Bruce Willis -- engaged with its maudlin story."[5] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[6]
Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, writing: "Mercury Rising is about the most sophisticated cryptographic system known to man, and about characters considerably denser than anyone in the audience. Sitting in the dark, our minds idly playing with the plot, we figure out what they should do, how they should do it, and why they should do it, while the characters on the screen strain helplessly against the requirements of the formula."[7] James Berardinelli rated it one and a half out of four stars, saying: "The script for Mercury Rising is exceptionally tiresome and hard-to-swallow. ... Once again, certain standby plot elements -- the high-level government conspiracy and the maverick law enforcement agent -- are recycled, and not to good effect. While Bruce Willis can play the action hero as well as anyone in Hollywood, this particular outing leaves him marooned in situations that are characterized by too little tension and too much nonsense."[8]
Accolades[]
Bruce Willis received the 1999 Golden Raspberry Award as Worst Actor for his performance (as well as for Armageddon and The Siege).(citation needed) Miko Hughes won the category of Best Performance in a Feature Film—Leading Young Actor at the 1999 Young Artist Awards for his portrayal of Simon.(citation needed)
See also[]
- Mental calculators in fiction
- RSA Secret-Key Challenge
References[]
- ↑ Mercury Rising (movie details). The Numbers. Nash Information Services, LLC.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Mercury Rising. Box Office Mojo. IMDb.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "‘Simon’ summons Willis, Becker to U", Variety.
- ↑ "‘Simple’ scribes connect on 2 pitches at U", Variety.
- ↑ Mercury Rising. Rotten Tomatoes.
- ↑ CinemaScore. cinemascore.com.
- ↑ Mercury Rising :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews
- ↑ Mercury Rising - A Film Review by James Berardinelli
