No Mercy (1986)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

Richard Pearce

Writer:

James Carabatsos (writer)

Release Date:

19 December 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

When passion and hatred know no limits, expect no mercy.

Plot:

Maverick Chicago cop Eddie Jillette poses as a hit man to meet with someone in from New Orleans looking to have a job done...

Plot Keywords:

Police | Motel | Violence | Showdown | Organized Crime

Cast

Richard Gere	...	Eddie Jillette
Kim Basinger	...	Michel Duval
Jeroen Krabbé	...	Losado
George Dzundza	...	Captain Stemkowski
Gary Basaraba	...	Joe Collins
William Atherton	...	Allan Deveneux
Terry Kinney	...	Paul Deveneux
Bruce McGill	...	Lieutenant Hall
Ray Sharkey	...	Angles Ryan
Marita Geraghty	...	Alice Collins
Aleta Mitchell	...	Cara
Fred Gratton	...	Quiet
Dionisio	...	Pinto
Ray Brown	...	Benny Blue
Kim Chan	...	Old Asian Man

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Germany:16 (re-rating) (uncut) | Norway:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:18 (original rating) (cut) | Singapore:M18

Filming Locations:

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

Company:

TriStar Pictures

Trivia:

The car wash in the beginning of the movie still exists. It is now a Mobile Station on Elston Avenue in Chicago.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: The cat's trainer is briefly visible from under the hotel clerk's desk while Eddie and Michel are waiting for Losado.

Quotes:

Michel Duval: I'm not a whore.
Eddie Jillette: What?
Michel Duval: I'm not a whore. I've never been with anyone except Losado.
Eddie Jillette: So?
Michel Duval: I'm not a whore.

Stale revenge story - utterly familiar.

In 1986, when No Mercy was released, two names that would be near the top of any "World's Sexiest Man" and "World's Sexiest Woman" lists would have been Richard Gere and Kim Basinger. In getting these two gorgeous people together, the makers of No Mercy then committed the age-old sin - they forgot to provide them with a decent story!

Gere plays Chicago cop Eddie Jillette. Whilst on a case, Eddie's partner Joe (Gary Basaraba) is brutally murdered by French gangster Losado (Jereon Krabbe). Jillette heads down to Losado's New Orleans lair to avenge his partner's death. There, he meets gangster's moll Michel (Kim Basinger), a stunning woman desperate to get away from her sadistic lover but too afraid to do so. She and Jillette end up handcuffed together, hiding out in the dangerous Louisiana swampland from Losado and his heavies.

Immediately, you can see that No Mercy is riddled with stale plot devices - cop avenging the death of his friend; hero stealing a lover from the villain; usual fish-out-of-water ideas (this time a Chicago cop working in New Orleans); even the swamp sequence has a whiff of The Defiant Ones and The 39 Steps about it. The film is also excessively grim and nasty, with Krabbe in particular struggling to do anything as a one-dimensional, knife-wielding sadist. The action high-spots, including a climactic shootout in a burning hotel, are quite expensive-looking sequences but, like the rest of the film, are oddly uninteresting and unoriginal.