No Mercy (1986) TriStar/Action-Thriller RT: 108 minutes Rated R (language, violence, some sexual content) Director: Richard Pearce Screenplay: Jim Carabatsos Music: Alan Silvestri Cinematography: Michel Brault Release date: December 19, 1986 (US) Cast: Richard Gere, Kim Basinger, Jeroen Krabbe, George Dzundza, Gary Basaraba, William Atherton, Terry Kinney, Ely Pouget, Bruce McGill, Marita Geraghty, Aleta Mitchell, Fred Gratton, Dionisio, Charles S. Dutton, Kim Chan, George Dickerson. Box Office: $12.3M (US)
Rating: ** ½
Funny, I remember really liking No Mercy when it came out. Now I think it’s just a hair above mediocre. It has a so-so storyline, a poorly defined villain and an unconvincing performance from Richard Gere. I never once believed he was a cop from Chicago. He doesn’t have the right Windy City attitude. It would be a different story if he played a cop from L.A. like he did in Internal Affairs four years later. If you haven’t seen it, I urge you to check it out.
Gere plays Eddie Jillette, a cop out for revenge against the New Orleans crime lord (Krabbe, The Living Daylights) who murdered his partner (Basaraba, Fried Green Tomatoes) during an unauthorized undercover op. He heads down to the Big Easy to track down Losado. The only thing he has to go on is the woman who was with him when he did the deed. Eddie locates the woman, Michel (Basinger, 9 ½ Weeks), and takes her into custody. Handcuffed together, they spend a great deal of the movie trying to outrun Losado and his goons in the Louisiana Bayou.
Directed by Richard Pearce (Country), No Mercy isn’t without its good points. It positively brims with New Orleans flavor. You can almost taste the Cajun spices on the food. I also love its film noir trappings. Pearce takes us to places where no tourist would ever dare set foot. Eddie moves through the seedy underbelly of the city encountering dangerous criminal types in search of the beautiful woman with a parrot tattoo who can lead him to Losado. If there’s one thing No Mercy doesn’t lack, it’s atmosphere. It has it in spades.
An action movie can sink or swim based on its villain. No Mercy is a case of the former. Losado is a weak antagonist. There’s nothing outstanding or particularly memorable about him. We know he deals in human trafficking and that he’s in business with a wealthy local family. We also know he owns Michel. It’s explained that she was sold to him by her own mother when she was 13. She’s been in servitude to him since then. Basically, the guy is a sleaze and a cop killer. He never exudes the level of danger one expects from a movie villain. He’s as generic as they come.
Gere, like I said, isn’t believable as a Chicago cop. He puts forth visible effort, but it doesn’t pay off in the end. He’s as generic a hero as Krabbe is a bad guy. It’s a perfect match. Basinger isn’t much better. At this point in her career, the former model was little more than a pretty face and a hot body. She doesn’t yet have the gravitas to pull off a complex character like Michel, a grown woman seen by other as either property or a whore. She can’t even read. Such a tragic character should elicit more sympathy than Basinger does. To be fair, the two leads have some chemistry, enough that they would reunite six years later in the suspense-thriller Final Analysis.
The best performance in No Mercy comes from George Dzundza (No Way Out) as Eddie’s CO. He doesn’t like Eddie very much and makes this clear on more than one occasion. At the same time, he wants him to catch his partner’s killer, setting him up with a small arsenal for that purpose. He’s the one who properly conveys the Chicago attitude. Bruce McGill (Animal House) is okay as the New Orleans detective who wants Eddie to get the hell out of his jurisdiction. I wish they had done more with William Atherton (Die Hard) who plays a member of the aforementioned wealthy family. He was the go-to guy in the 80s for arrogant d-bag characters. He plays one here, but it feels like he’s phoning it in.
While No Mercy is in part a chase thriller, the only real action goes down in the finale when Eddie lures Losado and his men to a hotel where they do battle. It’s a pretty good sequence. I like it when Losado bursts through a wall of fire like the Kool-Aid guy in pursuit of Eddie and Michel (of course she’s present). That, to me, is pure 80s action movie fun. The rest of No Mercy is just okay. I don’t know why I thought it was great back in ’86. I guess I was less discriminating as a teen. Now it’s just a crime thriller on autopilot.
