Mercury Rising (1998)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Harold Becker

Writers (WGA):

Ryne Douglas Pearson (novel)
Lawrence Konner (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

3 April 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

Someone knows too much.

Plot:

Bruce Willis is an outcast FBI agent who is assigned to protect a 9 year old autistic boy who is the...

Plot Keywords:

Code | Boy | FBI | Assassin | NSA

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Bruce Willis	...	Art Jeffries
Alec Baldwin	...	Nicholas Kudrow
Miko Hughes	...	Simon
Chi McBride	...	Tommy B. Jordan
Kim Dickens	...	Stacey
Robert Stanton	...	Dean Crandell
Bodhi Elfman	...	Leo Pedranski (as Bodhi Pine Elfman)
Carrie Preston	...	Emily Lang
Lindsey Ginter	...	Burrell (as L.L. Ginter)
Peter Stormare	...	Shayes
Kevin Conway	...	Lomax
John Carroll Lynch	...	Martin Lynch
Kelley Hazen	...	Jenny Lynch
John Doman	...	Supervisor Hartley
Richard Riehle	...	Edgar Halstrom

Also Known As:

Mercury Falling (USA) (working title)
Simon (USA) (working title)
Simon Says (USA) (working title)
Simple Simon (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and language.

Runtime:

111 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS | DTS-Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba) | Denmark:15 | Canada:AA (Ontario) | South Korea:15 (original rating) | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Belgium:KT | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | France:U | Germany:16 (w) | Netherlands:16 | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:PG | Sweden:15 | Switzerland:12 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Vaud) | UK:15 | USA:R | South Korea:18 (DVD rating) | Ireland:15 | Italy:T | Spain:13 | Canada:13+ (Quebec)

Filming Locations:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Company:

Imagine Entertainment

Trivia:

Actor Miko Hughes spent time with many autistic children at a special school. He also worked with a Chicago child psychologist to understand how to portray an autistic child.

Goofs:

Continuity: Waste bin in Leo's flat is under the desk when Leo throws the carbon paper away. Yet when Emily finds bin, it is part way out from underneath desk.

Quotes:

[first lines]
FBI Supervisor Hartley: Let's go down.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Watch the Mercury Rising (1999) (V)

Soundtrack:

Evil (Is Going On)

Not your typical Bruce Willis film

This film was panned by critics when it was first released, and to this day, I have absolutely no idea why.

Perhaps its because when you think of 'Bruce Willis' you think Die Hard, Action, over the top sequences.

Well perhaps the 'critics' need to get a life and stop thinking in such narrow terms, Willis is an able actor that can do more than Die Hard and in Mercury Rising he proves it ably.

I'm not going to go too much into the story as many others have, but the performance of Miko Hughes as the autistic 8 year old was fantastic. Having met a few autistic children, I'm not sure how Miko Hughes' performance wasn't singled out, which just further goes to show the naivety of the critics.

Only thing I didn't like about the film is John Barrys score. This man is so typecast as the James Bond music man, whenever I hear music, thats all I can think of, as his style is so focused on a certain type of sound with the same instruments littering his scores.

Every film he has ever done sounds the same.

Mercury Rising is worthy of your time, and I am not surprised that people are finally discovering it and realising that its not the failure that critics would have you believe.