ISage writer Marco Van Belle presents a gripping script for this real-time futuristic thriller-satire set in LA in 2029, in a world (so they say) where AI is solely responsible for assessing criminal guilt or innocence. You’ve heard of RoboCop? This is robojustice. Veteran Russian-Kazakh filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov directs, bringing his usual strong approach to big action scenes, and Chris Pratt plays an LAPD policeman accused of murder. (Longtime Pratt fans will appreciate a cameo appearance here from Pratt’s fellow star Jay Jackson on TV’s Parks and Recreation, effectively reprising his performance as sonorous TV newsreader Perd Hapley.)
The obvious target of the film is the lethal power of AI, however the film is part of the doublethink of liberal opinion today, in which we all seriously agree that AI is very worrisome, while having little to no intention of doing anything about it. Pratt plays Detective Chris Raven, an officer suffering from a drinking problem but still a poster boy for LA law enforcement in 2029, having handed down the first sentence under the city’s creepy new high-tech justice system, ironically called Mercy (it doesn’t seem to be an acronym). The AI is now the sole arbiter of justice and each defendant has a 90-minute hearing to present their case before Judge Maddox, an AI-hologram played by Rebecca Ferguson who insists on the facts but is capable of strange Max-Headroom-type gaffes.
One day, Raven wakes up hungover in the courtroom restraint chair in front of Maddox and is told that he is accused of murdering his wife – an event of which he has no memory. Now he must clear his name using the city’s vast cloud-banked collection of bodycam and surveillance footage, phone records and calls to coworkers and family members. Dejected and heartbroken, Raven must now give up her career police job.
It’s simple and watchable stuff, with cheeky twists, although the final escalation of full-on action mayhem is perhaps a step too far in the direction of pure absurdity. The film is also a bit generous on AI: “Human or AI – we all make mistakes.” Uh… yes. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Raven and Judge Maddox revive their human-digital chemistry for the sequel.
