Merciless, a Review

My first movie review (slightly edited for its appearance here) ran in The New Jersey Herald on December 26, 1986.  Headline: "No Mercy" Riddled with Cliches and Violence.  With Richard Gere and Kim Basinger.  Herald rating:  C.

If "No Mercy" fails at the box office, it won't be because the producers missed any of the familiar ploys aimed at insuring its popular success.  The dialogue is coarse and vulgar; the screenplay is formula-driven and riddled with cinematic cliches; and most important, graphic violence is everywhere--accompanied by a short-fused sexual tension that eventually explodes.  "No Mercy" has it all.

The heart of the movie is the down-and-dirty romance between Eddie Jillette (Richard Gere) and Michel Duval (Kim Basinger).  They are, in fact, excellent together, a red-hot romantic duo.  Their combined sensuousness is as steamy as the Louisiana Bayou where, handcuffed together, the two sex symbols escape to.  Directer Richard Pearce nicely develops their sexual chemistry from the outset with soul-searching eye contact that literally promises later fireworks.  And producer Dino Conte has found the Gere-Basinger coupling so cinematically satisfying that he has more work already lined up for them.

Beyond the romance, however, "No Mercy" offers very little.

Before the passionate love scene and wild shoot-out at the end, we are led through an unlikely plot.  Jillette is a Chicago cop who learns of a New Orleans woman (Duval) looking for someone to murder her Louisiana crime lord lover, Losado (played with evil brilliance by Jeroen Krabbe).  Eddie and his partner take the job.  The job is complicated of course because Losado is determined to keep the woman who "belongs" to him.  He establishes his evil credentials by blowing up Michel's confidante and disemboweling Eddie's partner.

The death of his partner provides Eddie with a motive (unimaginative and worn out as it is) for tracking down the mysterious New Orleans crime king.  His job is thus transformed into a love-driven vendetta.

Because "No Mercy" is set in an unreal world, there is never a moment's doubt that Jillette will triumph in the end.  He will have his vengeance and his woman.  But before that triumph can work on screen, the menacing terror of Losado's brutality has to be established.  And it is--over and over again.  His squad of goons loft mortar-like bombs and burst into rooms with shotguns blazing, but it is Losado himself who is the most cold-blooded killer, cutting up his victims with a measured inhumanity.  He is, indeed, a worthy and fearsome adversary.

When Losado and his thugs come gunning for Jillette at movie's end, we are fully prepared for a monumental shootout.  And we get it.  There are booby traps, handguns, shotguns, even a car that explodes in a hotel lobby.  There is also, of course, Losado's ever-present hunting knife.  The final victory comes when Jillette defeats the arch-villain and rescues the slightly soiled maiden from a fate wore than death.  Thus the triumphant ending promised at the outset is dutifully delivered.  Ho hum.  There was never a doubt.

Viewing Guide:  Sex:  No nudity but plenty of sexual language and action.  Violence:  Explicit and insistent, a bloodbath.  Language:  Foul throughout.  Rated R.