The Mercy cannot keep itself afloat and never quite manages to raise its sails up, portraying a very predictable (to the point of boring) voyage, with an almost unconvincing and foolish “hero”-character at its centre.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Aug 9, 2024

This biographical drama is simple, restrained, without much pretense of greatness, but the story it exhibits conveys the sense of tragedy that haunts the protagonist. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jun 27, 2020

What's great about The Mercy is how it manages to surprise, both in the story it's telling and how Marsh gradually shifts the tone.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 7, 2019

In spite of the hidden quality flashes among their boring 101 minutes, it is the routine that ends up ruining the film.[Full Review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 11, 2019

What starts off as sweet and entertaining shifts rapidly into a film full of courage and love. The Mercy is Firth at his very best: understated, vulnerable and very, very British.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 26, 2019

If you're tempted to see this well-acted but dour drama, you might best be advised to read up on Crowhurst first: you still may not like it, but at least you'll better be able to appreciate the kind of movie that director James Marsh has made.

| Dec 14, 2018

The Mercy is a limited pleasure, unfortunately, given the cast, the subject, and the director. It's trying to be three different films in three different genres, all of them attempting to follow the same narrative at the same time.

| Dec 8, 2018

Marsh is content with telling Crowhurst's story in the most mundane way possible, but because it's such a good story with an inherently involving character at the center of it, the approach still works on the most basic of levels.

| Original Score: 6/10 | Dec 6, 2018

This is really a one-man show for Firth, as we spend long stretches with him on the boat, watching his stiff-upper-lip British façade splinter and crumble in the face of harsh weather, mounting mechanical problems and punishing loneliness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 6, 2018

A poignant and at times jaw-dropping movie. Firth is tremendous as Crowhurst -- it's an unflinching portrayal that's sympathetic but utterly realistic. Weisz is good though her character has little to do beyond keeping the home fires burning.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2018

This is a tale that could have been told very effectively as a one-hander. Instead, Marsh balances his time between the boat and dear old Blighty, where the sponsors are getting excited and a press agent is trying to drum up stories at every opportunity.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Dec 3, 2018

A surface level analysis of what failure and dishonor can do to one's ambitions

| Original Score: 3/5 | Dec 2, 2018

Firth's performance and some second-half twists make it worthwhile.

| Dec 1, 2018

It all seems doomed from the start-and never in the same throat-gripping class with such fateful horrors-at-sea epics as Adrift or Robert Redford's All is Lost.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 30, 2018

A startling and tragic example of modern man's desperation and hubris, The Mercy is an impassive portrait of a fascinating catastrophe.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 30, 2018

True-life sailing misadventure is mild in every way.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 30, 2018

The film has been made with plenty of sincerity and no small amount of effort, but with no idea of what it wants to say.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 30, 2018

"The Mercy" does make an impression, through thespian accomplishment and Donald's unusual crisis of despair.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 29, 2018

Colin Firth and Rachel Weisz very nearly drag this one over the finish line.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 29, 2018

Marsh captures the majestic beauty of the sea, capturing that allure which has tempted millions of men to hear the call just as Donald did.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 29, 2018