Product Details

• Actors: Bruce Willis, Miko Hughes, Alec Baldwin, Chi McBride, Kim Dickens
• Directors: Harold Becker
• Writers: Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Ryne Douglas Pearson
• Producers: Brian Grazer, Joseph Singer, Karen Kehela Sherwood, Maureen Peyrot
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: February 9, 1999
• Run Time: 111 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (77 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0783229097
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #583,499 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Take off your thinking caps and toss 'em in a corner, 'cuz you won't need 'em when you're watching this deliriously dumb thriller from 1997. Bruce Willis stars as a demoted FBI agent who comes to the aid of an autistic boy whose mind holds a potentially deadly secret. It seems that by gazing on a puzzle magazine and making order out of a hidden system of numbers, the 9-year-old autistic boy (Miko Hughes) has accidentally deciphered a sophisticated top-secret government code. This makes him the prime target of the ruthless bureaucrat (Alec Baldwin, in one of his silliest roles), and Willis comes to the rescue. This formulaic thriller sets up this plot with a lot of entertaining urgency, but you can't give any thought to Mercury Rising or the whole movie collapses under the weight of its own illogic and nonsense. The redeeming values are the performances of Willis, young Hughes, and newcomer Kim Dickens as a woman who agrees (perhaps too easily, it seems) to aid Willis in his plot to outmaneuver the bad guys. Mercury Rising is not a waste of time compared to other formulaic thrillers, but its entertainment value depends on how much you enjoy being smarter than the movie. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very Good and Emotionally Charged Action Film, April 3, 2006

By 

gobirds2 (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mercury Rising (DVD)

This is an action film with a lot of emotion behind it. It has a real heart felt story that questions plausibility and true credibility at times but it really hits home as it evokes genuine sentiment and feeling through a brutal world we now live in. This to date is the last great action film staring Bruce Willis. His performance of the dedicated civil servant doing what is right against all odds is admirable. His adversary Alec Baldwin stands for all that is wrong with a system that is supposed to protect our way of life and liberties while sacrificing the innocent trying to protect it at the enrichment of his own ego. At the center is a small autistic boy who supposedly can compromise Baldwin's plans who is being protected by FBI agent Willis who has fallen from grace. In simplest terms it is a film of right and goodness against greed and evil. On that level this film works. This film contains one of John Barry's last great scores as it gives credence to the story by bringing our most tearfully compassionate emotions to the surface while driving the narrative with an impassioned purpose. I like this film a lot I think because it takes the hardened tough good guy hero image and on an emotional level shows what drives him and what's really makes his heart tick.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mercury Rising--What an ironic title for an autism movie!, June 20, 2005

By 

Pamelot "Pamelot" (WashingtonDC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mercury Rising (DVD)

As the mother of an autistic child, I was intrigued by this movie when I found it while channel surfing. I choose not to comment on the believability or likeability of the plot, but will say instead that the actor who played Simon, the young autistic boy, did an OUTSTANDING job. The writers, apparently, also did some research on the condition. The use of the cards Simon kept pinned to his belt was right on the money. Autistic children comprehend so much better visually, and through the printed word, than they do through listening to people speak. The scene where Simon is spinning wheels on a toy car is also very realistic. My only other comment is on the irony that, in 1998, before anybody figured out or suggested that mercury causes autism (this is a theory first posed in 1999 and gaining more and more credibility every day),the producers had the foresight to name their movie about an autistic boy "Mercury Rising."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mercury Rising, January 16, 2010

By 

TREND700 "TREND700" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mercury Rising (DVD)

Bruce Willis is an outcast FBI agent who is assigned to protect a 9 year old autistic boy who is the target for assassins after cracking a top secret government code. This moves at a breakneck speed building tension along the way as various covert types try to put a bullet in Willis and companies collective head. "Mercury Rising" is a very entertaining and solid thriller.