5/5/09: Mercy (1996)
We never figured out who sent us a VHS of
Mercy the week that it was released on home video. It wasn’t marked as a review copy, and there wasn’t any note from a publicist. We like to think it was somebody involved with the film who knew a day would come when the Netflix blurb for the DVD would read like this:
A racist man comes face to face with his demons after his daughter is kidnapped in this thriller. When wealthy lawyer Frank Kramer (John Rubinstein) learns that his daughter (Reah Silver-Smith) has been kidnapped, he agrees to adhere to the perpetrators’ wishes. But as he runs from one dangerous ’hood to another to pick up the kidnappers’ instructions, he realizes that the criminals want to torture him even more than they want the ransom money.You know why those ’hoods are dangerous? It’s because they’re…well, ’hoods. There’s at least one Netflix employee that’s more racist than wealthy lawyer Frank Kramer. Anyway, it’s true that he’s played by John Rubinstein—last discussed here in
Daniel, although he also appears in
The Car. This indie film moves fast, with Kramer’s 11-year-old daughter Nicole being kidnapped at the start by Ruby (played by Amber Kain in what should’ve been a star-making turn). Ruby is the daughter of Kramer’s maid, although we won’t learn that for a while. All we know is that Nicole is very happy to see Ruby.
It doesn’t take Nicole much time to realize that she’s being kidnapped by Ruby and Matty—who’s played by Sam Rockwell in his usual “look, I’m acting” style. (He’s a stupid Brooklyn kid, but Matty sure likes to show off his mastery of dialects.) Then we start to establish Kramer as a character. He runs up staircases for exercise, and is cold and heartless. He’s a prominent Manhattan figure, too, so he’s a compassionate hypocrite. His assistant notes that there’s a benefit that night for homeless children. “Get me my tuxedo,” he smirks.
That event keeps Kramer from finding out that Nicole has been kidnapped until later that night. The first call comes from Matty, and Kramer is soon running around Manhattan to assorted public phones. (His driver has been sent off for the evening.) This is Giuliani’s New York City, but the script’s fairly believable as Kramer gets yanked from his plush lifestyle and into the gutter. It’s still a little unsubtle when Kramer gets into a cab with blood on the back seat, and has to wipe his hand off on his formalwear and his nice white scarf.
Nicole’s handling things much better. She’s helping Matty with a crossword puzzle and dealing with Ruby’s crazy ways. “I have become what this guy fears most,” boasts Ruby. “I’m educated and in control.” Actually, what Kramer fears most is the thugs uptown and the drag queen and her pimps downtown—along with the other lowlifes that he has to deal with while being run all over town. Unfortunately, Ruby’s fun goes wrong when the kidnappers send Kramer back uptown once too often. He’s knocked unconscious by some guys who don’t bother to look in the pillowcase that he’s carrying with $250,000 inside.
This is when
Mercy abruptly becomes
Ransom—released the same year, which probably did a lot to screw up
Mercy’s chances for a theatrical release. The smart businessman has to defy the clowns at the FBI and get his daughter back. Kramer’s not a good guy-—as we learn from Ruby's prime motive—but that’s to be expected. You still have to feel sorry for Kramer when his second attempt to retrieve his daughter gets screwed up by the fact that he still has to deal with Manhattan’s riff-raff.
You might spend the film waiting for some confirmation of Kramer as a heartless Republican. That scene never arrives. Instead, things culminate with a wonderful Radical Chic moment when Kramer sets out to buy a gun and meets a loony arms dealer who’s part Al Sharpton and part Reverend Ike. "If I give you a gun,” rants the psycho, “will you vote for me? I’m running for mayor! This city has taken a subway ride to a land of sorrow!"
This is where Kramer begins to realize the depths of his Leftist sins. Fortunately, the FBI arrives to save the day. They can’t find Kramer’s kid, but they can save a rich Manhattan liberal. Then the film ends sort of abruptly—and, really, not too badly for Kramer. At least not nearly as dramatic as the film’s closing tone suggests. He’s mainly proven right about not trusting the FBI, and Nicole seems to be a good kid. Too bad there wouldn’t be a Republican worth her vote once she got old enough to cast a ballot.
Make it your own: As noted, there are
VHS copies of
Mercy. You can also find DVD copies, but the only ones we’ve seen—like the graphic above—are packaged as
Scream for Mercy. That’s overly dramatic.
