The Mercury Puzzle

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Movie
German title The Mercury Puzzle
Original title Mercury Rising
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1998
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Harold Becker
script Lawrence Konner ,
Mark Rosenthal
production Brian Grazer ,
Karen Kehela
music John Barry ,
Carter Burwell (additional music)
camera Michael Seresin
cut Peter Honess
occupation

The Mercury Puzzle is a thriller by Harold Becker from 1998. The film is based on the novel The Red Rocking Chair (original title: Simple Simon ) by Ryne Douglas Pearson .

action

The US-American secret service NSA has developed a new supercode - called: "Mercury" (English for mercury ) - which supposedly can neither be cracked by a human nor by a computer. In order to prove the reliability, the programmers hide a message encoded with the code in a puzzle booklet. Solving the puzzle will give you a phone number that you can use to win a two-year subscription to any magazine with one phone call. Nobody suspects that the puzzle can be solved.

But they didn't expect Simon. The nine-year-old boy is autistic and has special intellectual abilities. For him the task is child's play in two respects. When he phoned the secret service, everyone involved was shocked. The boy is in mortal danger, because Lieutenant Colonel Kudrow wants to eliminate him and thus the security risk, since he assumes that he is the only one who can crack the code. His parents are shot dead cold by the hit man Peter Burrell. Simon is found by FBI agent Art Jeffries, who could not prevent the deaths of two children during a previous mission, while investigating the crime scene in a hiding place and is brought by this to a clinic.

After Jeffries just managed to save the boy from the hit man in the clinic, he kidnaps him to protect him. Since Simon lives in his own world, the task turns out to be very difficult. Jeffries has to establish contact with him without losing sight of him for a second. Although he can prevent another murder attempt in a suburban train and throw the perpetrator off the train, initially nobody at the FBI believes except him that Simon is in danger. Jeffries manages - also with the help of the chance acquaintance Stacey - to hide Simon for a while.

Dean Crandell, one of Kudrow's associates, disagrees with his boss's methods and meets with Jeffries. During the meeting, he is shot dead by Burrell, who is filmed on a surveillance camera and identified by colleagues from Jeffries as a special forces officer allegedly killed years ago. Yet another cryptologist , Leo Pedranski, is killed by Burrell after typing a letter to Jeffries and another to the Senate Supervisory Committee on the advice of his friend Emily Lang. She turns to Jeffries and hands him the used blue paper of the letter that the killer overlooked in the trash and that Kudrow calls the mastermind behind the murders.

Kudrow and Burrell are trapped on the roof of a skyscraper. You are killed in combat with an FBI unit and Jeffries. Simon is taken in by a foster family. At the end there is a happy reunion between Jeffries and Simon.

Reviews

The film received rather negative reviews, especially the plot was described as implausible. Some critics praised Miko Hughes' play in the role of the autistic boy.

"A routinely staged, but uninspired action thriller that does not hide its logical breaks, but does not use its conventional construction for content reflections either."

- Lexicon of international film

“Even the reliable Bruce Willis couldn't save the film. The plan to combine a story about an autistic child with explosive action seems too much. The result is not very original and strangely tension-free. [...] Conclusion: A puzzle that doesn't work out. "

- Cinema

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating "valuable".

literature

  • Ryne Douglas Pearson: The red rocking chair , Lübbe 1998, ISBN 3-404-12776-5
  • Annette Kilzer (editor), Bruce Willis , Dieter Bertz Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-929470-70-5 , pp. 237-239, 292

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Certificate of Release for The Mercury Puzzle . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , July 2003 (PDF; test number: 79 516 DVD).
  2. ↑ Film review by James Berardinelli
  3. ^ Film review by Roger Ebert
  4. ↑ The Mercury Puzzle. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ↑ film review on cinema.de
  6. ↑ The Mercury Puzzle on fbw-filmbwertung.com