# Mercury Rising (1998)

### reviewed by
Berge Garabedian

    MERCURY RISING
    RATING: 6 / 10 --> Barely recommendable

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Bruce Willis teams up with bad-guy Alex Baldwin in a film that essentially introduces elements of WITNESS to the underlying theme of RAINMAN (8/10). The film also offers us one of the crappiest titles to grace a movie screen in a while, and has the privilege of being the recipient of "my shortest review award", due to the generic nature of its existence and the "been there, done that" feel of its development.

PLOT: FBI agent Art Jeffries is a rebel within his own clan, and is demoted to a rookie officer's job until he bucks up. While on an open-and-shut case, Jeffries runs into an autistic child, who was able to decipher an elaborate governmental code in a magazine, and suddenly finds himself attached to this kid's safety. Covert agents from the government are after the boy, and want him, and anyone else who knows about the discovery, dead.

CRITIQUE: Sub-par movie, this film doesn't truly live up to anything, because it doesn't offer enough action to be considered an "action movie", nor enough thrills to be considered a "thriller". Its dramatic touches are far from effective, so skip the drama category, and its semi-witty repartees don't amount to a hill of beans in regards to a legitimate comedy. So what is it? Who knows! It certainly isn't a great picture, but it does offer an interesting premise, a good actor in the kid who play the autistic child, and a few moments of quasi-action scenes. It also offers a one-dimensional, overacting bad guy in Alec Baldwin (Sure Alec, it's all about patriotism.....yawn.), many, and I do mean many plot holes (Which may, or may not bother you, depending on the type of movie-watcher you are), and a weak conclusion. All in all, a film in which the title character resembles and acts like the John McClane character from the DIE HARD series, but put them head to head in an ultimate cage-match, and McClane would chomp this pup's cheezy one-liners, and fake concern for breakfast. Bruce, it's time to listen for the bell, my friend, cause it seems to be tolling for thee.

Little Known Facts about this film and its stars: Alec Baldwin, at some point in his life, respectively dated Michelle Pfeiffer, Janine Turner and Ally Sheedy. He is currently married to actress Kim Basinger. What a man! Bruce Willis' full name is Walter Bruce Willison. His nickname is Bruno. This film's title went through some changes before the geniuses at the studio settled on MERCURY RISING (Great idea, guys! Way to sell those tickets!). Some of the earlier titles were SIMPLE SIMON, MERCURY FALLING (how innovative), and SIMON. Director Harold Becker has directed some solid films before this one. He's the man behind 1981's TAPS (7.5/10) with a young Tom Cruise, SEA OF LOVE (8/10) with the come-back of Al Pacino, and the 1996 drama CITY HALL (7/10). The one inside joke in the film comes in the way of Alec Baldwin telling Bruce Willis that "you've been watching too many of those 4-wheel-drive commercials" (Baldwin himself being the television voice of Chevy trucks). - Thanks to Scott Renshaw for that one. The autistic kid in this film, actor Miko Hughes, is not autistic in real life. His name means Chief in Chickasaw. He is a Native American. He also played Tom Hanks' son in 1995's APOLLO 13 (6.5/10). Bohdi Elfman, who plays the character of Leo Pedranski in this film, is the nephew of composer Danny Elfman, and married to TV star Jenna Elfman.

    Review Date:        January 2, 1999
    Director:                Harold Becker
    Writers:                  Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal (based on
    "Simple Simon" novel by Ryne Douglas Pearson)
    Producers:            Brian Grazer and Karen Kehela
    Actors:                   Bruce Willis as Art Jeffries, Alec Baldwin as
    Nicolas Kudrow, Miko Hughes as Simon Lynch, Kim Dickens as Stacey
    Genre:                   Thriller
    Year of Release:  1998Visit JoBlo's Movie Emporium
    http://www.joblo.com(c) 1999 Berge Garabedian

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