Mercury Rising (1998) Reviews

• Understated film; terrific chemistry between Willis and Hughes

  witheld2002-03-28

  Mercury Rising received a poor reception, a fate that movies of mixed genre's often received. Audiences came in expecting an action movie, and what they found was a heartwarming film about autism. The plot of Mercury Rising is almost laughably thin. An autistic child sees through a top secret code, and the government decides to kill him. Enter the rogue FBI agent(Bruce Willis) with the heart of gold, and watch the testosterone take over. A plot like this is something usually associated with Steven Seagal. The salvation to this movie is the relationship between Simon Lynch(Miko Hughes), the autistic child, and Willis redeems the movie. Without falling prey to the temptation to preach on autism, it sketchs an accurate picture of the illness. Hughes' performance is heartbreaking and accurate. Alec Baldwin maintains the movies tension with a chilling performance as an NSA agent who makes the decision to kill Simon. Baldwin revels in the role of villain, pulling out every acting chop he has to make this role believable. Director Harold Becker manages to propel this movie beyond its thin plot, riding on the backs of the incredible talent within the movie.

• Flawed, but it definitely surpassed my expectations

  Electrified_Voltage2008-06-29

  Nearly six years ago, in the summer, I was camping and visiting some relatives at their vacation trailer, and happened to walk in one day while "Mercury Rising" was being watched. By that time, they were well into the film, perhaps more than half way through, but I watched the rest. I'm not exactly sure how much I liked it at the time, but didn't see anything severely wrong with it. Last night, I watched the whole movie for the first time. Knowing it wasn't the most widely praised film, and that I have higher standards than I did six years ago, I had fairly low expectations, but after that, I can't say I dislike it. A very complex code called "Mercury" has been created by the NSA, one which is believed to be impossible to break. However, the code has been put in a puzzle magazine as a test to see if this is true, and a nine year old autistic boy in Chicago named Simon Lynch, who likes to solve puzzles, manages to break it. The NSA receives a call from this boy, and the two agents who have received the call inform their boss, Nicholas Kudrow. Kudrow is afraid of the code being spread around, so he sends an assassin to kill the boy! The assassin comes to Simon's house and kills his parents, but cannot find the boy himself, and flees when he hears the police coming! An FBI agent named Art Jeffries is sent to investigate, and he finds Simon hiding in a closet. After taking the boy away, Art must protect him and try to keep him from the assassins, which will be difficult, as he doesn't have too many people on his side, and keeping Simon in one place in sometimes a challenge! I'm not sure exactly how to explain my feelings about this movie. Around the beginning, it seemed pretty much average, but it gradually got better. I was pretty shocked at the scene where Simon's parents are killed, and not in a good way. Some (probably many) people have criticised "Mercury Rising" for being so unrealistic and clichéd, and I'm not going to argue with that, but I can't say I think it's a bad movie. As usual, Bruce Willis puts on a memorable performance, this time as FBI agent Art Jeffries, a likable character, and then-child actor Miko Hughes is also impressive as Simon. Playing the role of an autistic character probably wasn't easy, but it seems Hughes managed to pull it off. For me, it was reasonably suspenseful seeing the two characters on the run together. The film has very memorable and touching ending as well, one which I remembered from the first time. No, this certainly isn't the most popular action thriller ever made, nor does it deserve to be, but worse has been done. I honestly thought I would have more critical things to say about "Mercury Rising", but I don't, and it seems many of those who don't like it have given good reasons why they don't, probably better reasons than I can give for praising it. Since this 1998 action thriller is so polarizing, I guess there's no guarantee whether you'll like it or not, unless you don't like action thrillers in general, then you obviously wouldn't like it. However, if you're a fan of this genre, (you like good, though maybe mindless action), there's a chance "Mercury Rising" will do, as long as you're not expecting a masterpiece.

• Kids bring out the best in Bruce Willis

  b_u_n_442002-03-31

  I guess I am one of a few that really enjoyed this picture. For some reason I just felt the characters were very believable and the plot as well. I know it's just a movie but I wouldnt go as far as to say things like this don't happen. Bruce Willis is one of my favorites too, so maybe that is another reason I liked it so much. But anyone would have to agree that Miko Hughes, who portrayed the autistic 9yr old "Simon", gave a performance just as touching and realistic as the young boy from The Sixth Sense. Mercury Rising had good action, good dialogue and good emotion. And Bruce Willis gave that certain touch to make it a 10 to me.

• S10 Reviews: Mercury Rising (1998)

  suspiria102005-08-13

  Bruce Willis (Die Hard) stars in this excellent thriller as a FBI who specializes in deep undercover. But when his current infiltration of a militia group goes sour at a botched bank robbery he gets demoted to recording wiretaps. While on assignment Willis is ordered to help out with a missing child whose parents seemingly dies in a murder suicide. But all is not what it seems when the child is discovered to be autistic and to have stumbled onto solving the most important secret the NSA has…Mercury, the unbreakable code hiding the identities of all the undercover agents worldwide. The project leader (Alec Baldwin) will stop at nothing to protect his code not even killing an autistic little boy. "Mercury Rising" is a solid novel adaptation by Harold Becker (Malice, Domestic Disturbance). The cast of this thriller nail all their performances. Willis always plays an excellent flawed tough guy in this role with it tailored just for him. Miko Hughes (Spawn, Pet Sematary) plays the autistic boy so well you almost thought he wasn't acting. It moves at a breakneck speed building tension along the way as various covert types try to put a bullet in Willis and companies collective head. "Mercury" is a solid thriller.

• What is really sad is the grain of truth in this story

  Charles-312002-08-17

  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.