Mercury Rising

Mercury Rising
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Harold Becker
Produced by	Brian Grazer Karen Kehela Ric Kidney Joseph Singer Thomas Mack
Written by	Novel: Ryne Douglas Pearson Screenplay: Lawrence Konner Mark Rosenthal
Starring	Bruce Willis Alec Baldwin Miko Hughes Chi McBride Kim Dickens
Music by	John Barry
Cinematography	Michael Seresin
Editing by	Peter Honess
Studio	Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	April 3, 1998
Running time	111 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million
Box office	$93,107,289

Mercury Rising is a 1998 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Harold Becker, the movie is based on Ryne Douglas Pearson's 1996 novel originally published as Simple Simon. Willis plays Art Jeffries, an undercover FBI agent who protects a nine year old boy with autism who is targeted by government assassins after he cracks a top secret government code.

Plot

The film opens with a hostage situation in South Dakota where FBI Agent Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis), who, as the inside man, protects a 16 year old kid named James while trying to talk a bank robber named Edgar Halstrom (Richard Riehle) into surrendering. However, the FBI task force kills the robbers and James. Jeffries confronts his superior, who tells him he'd report to Washington.

A cryptographic code called "Mercury" was created by the National Security Agency and allegedly so complex that its creators believe no computer on Earth can decipher it. Originally it was created during the Reagan Administration as a test to keep the United States' highest priority secrets under wraps. One day, the NSA receives a message from a nine year-old autistic savant named Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes) who calls a telephone number written in the code which was secretly published in a puzzle magazine by two of the creators, Dean Crandell (Robert Stanton) and Leo Pedranski (Bodhi Elfman), to see if anyone could break it. Lt. Colonel Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin), who is the program chief, sees the boy's ability to decipher the code as a liability and rather than rectify the problem adequately, instead plans to silence Simon, sending a hit man and his partner to murder the boy and parents.

After killing the parents, the assassin, Peter Burrell (Lindsey Lee Ginter), searches the house, fails to find Simon, and leaves at the sound of approaching sirens. Jeffries, who has been demoted following a diagnosis of delusional paranoia, is sent to investigate what is initially thought to be a murder-suicide of Simon's parents. While investigating the scene, Jeffries finds Simon hiding in a cache of his bedroom closet and takes the boy under his wing. Jeffries begins to realize the difficulty of protecting, let alone questioning Simon, because of his impaired social abilities as a result of his autism, but the Chicago PD agreed to assign a protection detail to Simon. The situation is further complicated by the fact that nobody at the FBI believes Simon is in any danger, and Jeffries is soon framed by the NSA as a kidnapper, with only his best friend and fellow agent Thomas Jordan (Chi McBride) aware that he did not commit the crime, since Jordan had been in contact with Jeffries when the incident began. Art takes Jordan's car and takes Simon to Simon's house where his parents were murdered the previous morning. Simon again calls the telephone number written in the code, and, after realizing that Simon is talking to Crandell and Pedranski, arrangements are made for a meeting at the Wrigley Building. The next morning, he meets a woman named Stacey Siebring (Kim Dickens) in a coffee shop and asks her to watch Simon for him while he goes to meet Crandell.

Art meets Crandell and they talk as they walk on a busy sidewalk. As Crandell tells Art about Kudrow the assassin shoots him from behind and casually walks away. After the shooting, Art goes back to the coffee shop, but Simon and Stacey are gone. He goes outside and spots them coming across the street. Stacey says she and Simon have become friends and Simon agrees. Art and Simon then abruptly leave Stacy. Later in the middle of the night, Art and Simon go to Stacey's place and Art asks for a place to stay. Stacey reluctantly agrees and tells Art that she was going on a business trip to Des Moines to make the rent the next morning.

Meanwhile, Leo Pedranski turns to him for help, but shortly after he is murdered too. However, he has managed to leave a letter detailing Kudrow's crimes, which his girlfriend, Emily Lang (Carrie Preston) takes to the FBI and Jordan discreetly arranges for her to meet with Jeffries to show them both the carbon paper used to type the letter, which, being covered in Pedranski's fingerprints is crucial evidence in its own right. After the meeting with Emily, Art tells Stacey to call anybody for an emergency except the police, who were called off at the last minute, and gives her Jordan's number to contact if there was an emergency. While Jeffries introduces himself to Kudrow at his birthday party, and demands that Kudrow lay off Simon Lynch, Jordan under Jeffries' suggestion arranges for Simon to go into Witness Protection. After the meeting Jeffries contacts Jordan and Jordan explains how the Witness Protection meeting is going to happen, though they are unaware that their conversation over the phone is being monitored by Kudrow. When Jeffries returns and finds Stacey and Simon gone, he learns from Jordan that they are fine and will meet them there, just as Jordan is given an order to head to the FBI director's office.

Kudrow tries to have FBI SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Lomax (Kevin Conway) help him stop Jeffries by using his authority and the fact that Jordan arranged the Witness Protection under false pretenses. He plans to have the NSA take over the protection for the meeting spot. After Kudrow leaves, Jordan shows the evidence to Lomax and despite his initial doubts, Jordan confirms that the fingerprint markings on it were Pedranski's, now fully validating the evidence against Kudrow. Jeffries, with Jordan and a small FBI task force's help, set a trap at the meeting spot, in which they kill both Kudrow's hit man and then Kudrow himself, just as Kudrow grabs the screaming Simon in a last-ditched effort to get him back, and saves the boy as well as Stacey.

The film ends with Jeffries visiting Simon, now living with foster parents, at his school, who embraces Jeffries as a welcome friend, having finally accepted him as a person of his trust.

Cast

• Bruce Willis as Special Agent Art Jeffries
• Alec Baldwin as Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow
• Miko Hughes as Simon Lynch
• Chi McBride as FBI Agent Tommy Jordan
• Kim Dickens as Stacey Siebring
• John Carroll Lynch as Martin Lynch
• Kelley Hazen as Jenny Lynch
• L.L. Ginter as Peter Burrell
• Robert Stanton as Dean Crandell
• Bodhi Elfman as Leo Pedranski
• Kevin Conway as Lomax
• Carrie Preston as Emily Lang
• Peter Stormare as Shayes
• John Doman as Supervisor Hartley
• Richard Riehle as Edgar Halstrom
• Jack Conley as Detective Nichols

Reception

Bruce Willis won the 1999 Golden Raspberry Award as Worst Actor for his performance (as well as for Armageddon and The Siege). Miko Hughes, however, won the category of Best Performance in a Feature Film - Leading Young Actor at the 1999 Young Artist Awards for his portrayal of Simon.

Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, writing: "Mercury Rising is about the most sophisticated cryptographic system known to man, and about characters considerably denser than anyone in the audience. Sitting in the dark, our minds idly playing with the plot, we figure out what they should do, how they should do it, and why they should do it, while the characters on the screen strain helplessly against the requirements of the formula."^[1]

Box office

The film earned $10,104,715 in its opening weekend in 2,386 theaters. Altogether, the film grossed $32,935,289 in the United States and $60,172,000 internationally for a total of $93,107,289.

See also

• RSA Secret-Key Challenge

References

1. ^ Mercury Rising :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews

External links

• Mercury Rising at the Internet Movie Database
• Mercury Rising at Box Office Mojo