From the moment ‘Mercy’ begins, it’s clear this isn’t a film content to sit quietly on the sidelines—it pulls you directly into its world.
For Kali Reis, that sense of immersion was no accident. Working with visionary director Timur Bekmambetov, known for his bold screenlife techniques and kinetic visual language, Reis found herself part of a storytelling experience that blurs the line between observer and participant.
Reis recently sat down with Metro to discuss what first drew her to Timur’s work, what surprised her about the script, and why ‘Mercy’ ultimately became such a personal and exhilarating project.
Timur is the master, as far as I'm concerned, of the screenlife genre. I didn't understand while I was watching his movies why I was so intrigued by it... he draws you in with the mystery of how we tell stories. It makes you feel like you're part of the story versus just watching it as an audience member.
With something like his film ‘Wanted’, the way he used the different camera angles and how he told the story with the different actors and these slow motion [sequences] and all this other technology as far as special effects and everything—he is just a really cool filmmaker.
So when I read the script and found out he was doing this, I fell in love with the script and I thought he's going to tear this up in the most awesome way, he's going to do something really special with this. And I believe he did.
When we had the table read, I was sitting next to Rebecca [Ferguson] and she was reading this part. It says an AI judge, but you know a real person's going to play it. There was a lot that went into it — she even [put] little pauses before she says numbers... she just really put a lot of thought into what she was portraying this AI person or AI entity to be. She brought a lot of humanity to the human aspect of this AI.
So I was really intrigued when I read it. I'm like, okay, how is it going to be? Are they going to use AI or are they going to use a real person? How is that real person going to portray this? I think that I was so excited to see what she was able to do with it and how the final cut was going to be. I saw her doing her work, and you can see all these little choices that she made. I was so excited to see them on screen.
And then also, selfishly, I was really excited to see myself flying on the quad, because it was so fun filming it. I couldn't wait to see what they were going to do with it.
This was a really unique way of filming, and hats off to Timur again. At one point, there could have been 10, 15 cameras at a time. There's a drone, there's a phone, I have a camera on my helmet, I have a body cam, I have a phone facing me. We did a lot of really, really long takes where we were 40, 50, 60 minutes in and we'd run through almost the whole movie with myself and the other actors basically feeding Chris's lines as he was, quote unquote, speaking to us on FaceTime. It was an interesting way of shooting, and he's a real MVP for that one because it was really long takes. So by the time I got to my scenes that I was out on set, I would have already gone through the movie more than a dozen times feeding him lines.
Yeah, it was really cool to pick their brains. And actually, one of Chris's brothers has been in law enforcement for a long time, so he was kind of like our consultant. He was basically giving us real life scenarios—like in this type of situation, this is what I would say or this is who you would greet first, or this is how you would greet them, or this is how you would look at the scene...this is what you would think of first, this is how you guys would be as partners and these are the types of questions you would ask. And you guys have spent a lot of time together, and even though the dark parts of it—because with law enforcement, we have good apples and bad apples—but the ones who actually commit to doing their job and trying to serve the community, they see a lot of things on a daily basis.
He was just telling me all the little details that would make ... I would say make him proud because I don't do this job. So it's really interesting, him sharing stories as far as what it's like to lose a partner. I had a lot to work with in building my character's backstory as far as why she even got into law enforcement and what were her injustices that she faced that made her want to be part of the solution. Especially in this film, you see LA in this uproar and crime has skyrocketed. And unfortunately, it's not too far from the truth, but it's pretty amped up in the film.
You’re right, this film was made for the big screen; it was made for an IMAX 3D experience. And even if you don't go to a 3D movie, it was still made to go to the movies. It's a movie about technology and AI, but I guarantee you won't be on your phone, because you're not going to be able to turn away for one second. Every single second matters. We don't want you walking away thinking there's going to be killer robots judging everybody. But this is a very, very human story. There's a lot of humanity in this.
And I can say that while watching, you don't know whether Chris' character has done this or not. He gets accused of murdering his wife, he doesn't even know if he did it or not, but he is guilty of a lot of things—and you get to see that in real time. And if there was a world that we were immersed in with a lot more AI than we are now, maybe that's also a way that we can be more aware of how we treat one another. Maybe we'll be a little more kind, more patient. So maybe walk away with that.
‘Mercy’ releases in theaters Jan. 23.
