Mercury Rising

During a bank robbery hostage situation, an undercover FBI agent, Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis), attempts unsuccessfully to negotiate for more time to defuse the situation. The FBI storms the bank killing the robbers, but Jeffries's cover is blown, so he is given a boring desk job.

A nine-year-old autistic savant boy, Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes) is given an adult puzzle book by his teacher, and deciphers a phone number in a numerical puzzle. It was published in the magazine by two National Security Agency code creators, Dean Crandell and Leo Pedranski, to see if anyone could decipher it. The code, called "Mercury", is allegedly so complex that its creators believed no computer on Earth could decipher it. Simon phones the number, and Pedranski and Crandell report the situation to their boss, division chief Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin). He severely rebukes the pair for their unauthorized actions, and describes Simon and his abilities as a national security threat. Two assassins, Peter Burrell and Shayes, are deployed by Kudrow to terminate the boy and his parents, Martin and Jenny Lynch.

Posing as a police detective, Burrell gains entry to the Lynch household and unceremoniously shoots both Simon's mother and father with a silenced pistol. He is unable to find Simon himself when he searches the house. Upon hearing approaching sirens (Martin was able to call 911 before dying), Burrell stages a murder-suicide and is driven away from the house by Shayes.

Jeffries is sent to investigate and finds Simon in a hidden crawl space in his bedroom closet. Simon is taken to a protection ward at the hospital, where Burrell poses as a doctor and makes another attempt on the Simon's life. Simon is saved by the timely arrival of Jeffries, who, upon meeting Burrell and deducing his true nature, flees the premises with the boy. Later, while on a train, Shayes attacks the pair and is killed by Jeffries in self-defense.

The NSA, under Kudrow's direction, frames Jeffries as kidnapper of Simon. However, fellow agent Tommy Jordan, knows that he isn't. Jeffries borrows Jordan's car and takes Simon back to his house. Simon again calls the telephone number written into the code and Jeffries is able to talk to Crandell and Pedranski. Crandell arranges a meeting via encoded e-mail at the Wrigley Building. The next morning Jeffries goes to the meeting, leaving Simon under the care of a woman in a coffee shop, Stacey Siebring. Jeffries meets Crandell who tells him about "Mercury" and Kudrow, but Crandell is shot dead by Burrell before he can reveal everything.

Jeffries returns to the coffee shop, and Stacey says she and Simon have become friends and Simon agrees. Jeffries and Simon then leave, but later in the middle of the night, Jeffries and Simon go to Stacey's house, asking for a place to stay. Stacey reluctantly agrees but tells Jeffries that she was going on a business trip to Des Moines the next morning.

Meanwhile, Pedranski, having learned Crandell's fate, also tries to reveal Kudrow's unlawful actions by writing letters on a typewriter: one to Jeffries and a carbon copy to the Senate Oversight Committee. But Burrell tracks Pedranski down and murders him as well, and confiscates the letters. However, the assassin overlooks the carbon copies, which his girlfriend, NSA analyst Emily, takes to the FBI. Jordan discreetly arranges for her to meet with Jeffries to show them both the carbon paper of the letter, which, being covered in Pedranski's fingerprints, is crucial evidence. After the meeting Jeffries gives Stacey Jordan's number in case of an emergency. Jeffries goes to Kudrow’s home during his birthday party, and demands that Kudrow announce on national TV that the Mercury Encryption Project is a failure.

Jordan, under Jeffries suggestion, arranges for Simon to go into the Witness Protection Program. After the meeting, Jeffries calls Jordan, who explains that the Witness Protection meeting is going to happen, though they are unaware that their conversation is being monitored by Kudrow. When Jeffries returns and finds Stacey and Simon gone, he learns from Jordan that they are not in any danger and will meet them at a pick-up point, just as Jordan is given an order to head to the FBI director's office. There Kudrow tries to have FBI SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Lomax help turn the tables on Jeffries by using his authority and the fact that Jordan arranged the Witness Protection under false pretenses. He tells them that the NSA is taking over the protection program.

After Kudrow leaves, Jordan shows the carbon paper evidence to Lomax and confirms that the fingerprint markings on it were Pedranski's, now fully validating the evidence against Kudrow. Jeffries, with Jordan and an FBI task force's help, sets a trap at the meeting spot. Armed with a machine gun, Burrell fires at the FBI squad resulting in a shootout, while Kudrow attempts to escape with Simon on a pre-arranged helicopter. Jordan protects Stacey from the killer's fire. Jeffries leaps from the chopper, knocking Kudrow back, then disarming him when he tries to shoot the boy. They fight on the roof, but Simon walks to the edge of the roof and gets Kudrow's gun, giving it to Jeffries who forces the corrupt NSA chief back. Burrell is impaled and slashed to death by glass shards when the helicopter's propellers shatters the windows in front of him. In a last-ditch effort, Kudrow picks up Simon to throw him off the building, but is shot multiple times at point-blank range by Jeffries. He falls to his death, but not before crashing through a glass ceiling. Jeffries later visits Simon (now living with foster parents) at his school. He embraces the FBI agent as a welcome friend, having finally accepted him as a person he trusts.

• Bruce Willis as Special Agent Art Jeffries
• Alec Baldwin as Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow
• Miko Hughes as Simon Lynch
• Chi McBride as Special Agent Tommy Jordan
• Kim Dickens as Stacey Siebring
• John Carroll Lynch as Martin Lynch
• Kelley Hazen as Jenny Lynch
• L. L. Ginter as Peter Burrell
• Robert Stanton as Dean Crandell
• Bodhi Elfman as Leo Pedranski
• Kevin Conway as Special Agent-in-Charge Joe Lomax
• Carrie Preston as Emily Lang
• Peter Stormare as Shayes
• John Doman as Supervisor Hartley
• Richard Riehle as Edgar Halstrom
• Jack Conley as Detective Jack Nichols

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has a score of 21% based on reviews from 57 critics with an average rating of 4.37/10. The consensus states: "Mercury Rising lays the action on thick, but can never find a dramatic pulse to keep viewers -- or Bruce Willis -- engaged with its maudlin story."[3] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.[4]

Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, writing: "Mercury Rising is about the most sophisticated cryptographic system known to man, and about characters considerably denser than anyone in the audience. Sitting in the dark, our minds idly playing with the plot, we figure out what they should do, how they should do it, and why they should do it, while the characters on the screen strain helplessly against the requirements of the formula."[5] James Berardinelli rated it one and a half out of four stars, saying: "The script for Mercury Rising is exceptionally tiresome and hard-to-swallow. ... Once again, certain standby plot elements -- the high-level government conspiracy and the maverick law enforcement agent -- are recycled, and not to good effect. While Bruce Willis can play the action hero as well as anyone in Hollywood, this particular outing leaves him marooned in situations that are characterized by too little tension and too much nonsense."[6]

Bruce Willis received the 1999 Golden Raspberry Award as Worst Actor for his performance (as well as for Armageddon and The Siege). Miko Hughes won the category of Best Performance in a Feature Film—Leading Young Actor at the 1999 Young Artist Awards for his portrayal of Simon.

Mercury Rising was released for VHS and DVD on September 15, 1998. The Collector's Edition and DTS versions for DVD were released in 1999. A Blu-ray with Multi-Format was released on September 14, 2010, and the Double Feature with the film and The Jackal was also released for Blu-ray on March 22, 2011.

• Mental calculators in fiction
• RSA Secret-Key Challenge

• Mercury Rising on IMDb
• Mercury Rising at Box Office Mojo
• Mercury Rising at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mercury Rising at AllMovie