The film opens in a futuristic Los Angeles. The Mercy Court has been developed to use an AI judge to put defendants on trial for violent crimes. They are given 90 minutes to prove their innocence, or be executed via a sonic blast.
LAPD Detective Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is on trial for the murder of his wife Nicole (Annabelle Wallis). Presiding over his case is AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson). Raven is accused of going to see Nicole despite being separated due to his alcoholism. Raven was seen leaving the house, and their daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) discovered Nicole’s body with a knife in her abdomen. He was arrested at a bar following an altercation with other cops. His current guilt probability is 97%, and he needs to go under 92% to avoid execution.
Raven tries to talk to Britt and convince her that he is innocent, but Nicole’s parents, who are currently watching over Britt, prohibit her from talking to him. Maddox uses surveillance footage and other recorded information to help Chris piece together who could have killed Nicole. Raven also speaks to his friend Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan), who was also a coworker of Nicole who says everyone was expressing concern over her.
Raven learns that Nicole was seeing another man, Patrick Burke (Jeff Pierre), just before her death. Raven gets his partner on the force, Jaq Diallo (Kali Reis), to track Burke down. He admits that he was seeing Nicole because she felt that she could not communicate with Chris over what was troubling her, but he had an alibi at the time of Nicole’s murder. Jaq then brings Burke in as a person of interest. With Burke eliminated as a suspect, Raven’s guilt probability increases.
Raven must confront the accusations against him. He was previously sober but relapsed after the murder of his former partner, Ray Vale (Kenneth Choi), and Raven holds regret for not shooting the suspect dead because he was later acquitted and found not guilty of Ray’s death. The alcoholism led to him growing aggressive with Nicole and shutting her out, and she would record him for his sober self to watch. Britt would also come to resent her dad and confided in her boyfriend that she wanted them to get a divorce, as Maddox shows Raven a video call between the two of them.
With time running out, Raven starts to “think out loud” and try to separate suspects from everyone that was in close contact with Nicole. He eliminates Burke and her parents, separating the friends and coworkers. Raven gets back in touch with Burke to try and determine what kind of issues Nicole spoke to him about, and it boils down to a work issue. Raven removes the friends as suspects and tries to go through the coworkers.
Raven recalls hosting a barbecue with Nicole just days before the murder. He tries to narrow it down to a few people that were communicating with Nicole. Maddox shows Raven the records of one coworker, Holt Charles (Rafi Gavron), who appears to have had money issues and was being helped by Rob. Raven suspects that Holt might have killed Nicole for money, so he has Maddox contact Holt. He explains that it was actually him helping Rob. Further research shows that certain chemicals were missing from work, and Rob is responsible. Raven also goes over Britt’s video call, as she heard a noise and suspected it was her dad coming home, but other footage shows Raven wasn’t home at the time. When Britt recorded downstairs, she caught the door open, as well as what looks like an image of a man. Maddox then shows Raven footage of his neighbor’s security cameras, which show a rustling in the bushes, and when she catches surveillance footage from a parking lot, Rob is seen exiting the neighbor’s trunk.
Raven calls Jaq and tells her to go to Rob’s house but warns her and her team that he might be armed. As the SWAT team arrives at Rob’s house, they find he is not there, but they do find the stolen chemicals, as well as detailed plans to craft a bomb. Maddox pulls up more info on Rob, learning that he was raised in the foster care system, along with his brother, David Webb (Ross Gosla), the very first person executed by Mercy Court. Raven quickly realizes that this whole thing is a revenge scheme orchestrated against him. This officially clears Raven and ends the trial, but he knows that if he leaves the chair, the network connection through Maddox will be severed, and he will be unable to track Rob. He tries to contact Britt, but footage from her grandparents’ front door shows Rob kidnapping her and taking her into his truck. A timer then goes off, killing most of the SWAT team when Rob’s shed explodes.
Jaq pursues Rob in her hovercycle, as it is deduced that Rob is carrying tons of explosives toward Mercy Court to destroy the entire building with Raven inside, while taking Britt as a hostage. The cops are able to take Rob off his path and away from Mercy Court, but Jaq tries to get the task force captain to take Rob out. Raven pleads against this since Britt is inside, but the captain arms a bomb robot to detonate under the truck as Rob drives over the bridge, but Maddox hacks into the bomb and disables it, preventing the explosion. Rob eventually makes it back to Mercy Court and crashes the truck into the building after Maddox has evacuated everyone. The network resets and locks Raven in with seconds before he is executed, but Maddox reboots in time to let him go so he can save his daughter.
Raven confronts Rob at the front, and the two fight until he is able to disarm him. Raven prepares to execute Rob, but Britt and Maddox try to get Raven to stop so that Maddox can give Rob his own trial. Jaq shoots Rob, but Raven wants to hear him out. Rob says that David was innocent of the murder that he was tried and executed for since he spoke to David at the time that the victim’s body was found. Maddox pulls up footage that confirms David was nowhere near the crime scene at the time of the murder and that he was in contact with Rob. The truth is that Jaq deleted evidence and condemned an innocent man to death just to prove that Mercy is effective. Jaq and Rob are both taken into custody.
Britt runs up to her father and hugs him. Maddox shuts off, and a text onscreen appears to dismiss Raven’s case.[wide]
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