YMMV / Mercury Rising

• Adaptation Displacement: More people know of the film than the book that is based on.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: Whether or not you buy Kudrow willing to have a 9-year-old autistic boy and others in contact with him murdered just to deflect blame away from himself while claiming he's protecting the code to protect those it's keeping safe is gonna make or break your enjoyment of the film.
• Awesome Music: The score by the late, great John Barry is a powerhouse from beginning to end.
• Catharsis Factor: Watching Kudrow fall off the building as John Barry's score plays in the background.
• Fridge Logic:
  • Kudrow's hypocrisy is further proven by the fact that the agents he claims he's protecting will be further endangered when the word gets out about the code's vulnerability anyway. He's willing to risk their lives just to protect his investment and high-standing rather than guarantee their safety. It proves that as much as he claims to be doing it for the right reasons, Kudrow is actually lying through his teeth.
  • While Jeffries demanding to Kudrow that he evacuate his agents once the code's vulnerability is revealed just so that Simon can be saved does in a sense endanger the agents because they have to get out of their respective vicarious positions before they're all killed, the danger they're in is already increased by Kudrow to begin with because he chose to target Simon instead of figure out an appropriate escape plan for them much sooner. Jeffries's move then comes off as Cruel to Be Kind as he knows as hard as it may be for the agents to survive, they actually have more of a chance that way it turns out.
• Magnificent Bastard: Peter Burrell is a former soldier whose death was faked so he could become a government assassin. Burrell is assigned by Lt. Col. Nicholas Kudrow from the NSA to kill autistic 9-year-old Simon Lynch for reading the government code "Mercury" and kills Simon's parents in pursuit of him after being let into the house. Burrell then stages the scene as a murder-suicide when forced to depart before police arrive and then tries to later isolate Simon in the hospital and get to him, only stopped by Art Jeffries in the process. Burrell then helps cover up his colleague Shayes's killing at Jeffries's hands, takes out two more targets as a means of protecting Kudrow's interests and advises Kudrow on dealing with things briskly while presenting a valuable phone call recording. Burrell also shows his tactical expertise both when nearly engaging Jeffries in a public firefight and also when unleashing heavy gunfire on FBI agents trying to interfere with the mission as well.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Dr. London (Camryn Manheim) who helps Simon in the beginning would've been a good person for Jeffries to contact—especially because he got her name from one of Simon's cards too—in help being able to communicate with Simon and get him to open up to him faster, even if for just a little bit. Understandable that Jeffries's main priority was keeping Simon hidden any way he could though.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Having a larger danger actually posed with Simon learning the code being more widely known could've lead to giving the movie more of a pulse and urgency. The threat Kudrow represents as someone unconvincingly insisting he's doing right when he's actually only in it for himself is still effective though as is.
• Unintentional Period Piece: At one point, Kudrow tries to give Art a Hannibal Lecture by trying to convince him that Simon's life is less valuable than that of a spy that is undercover within Saddam Hussein's honor guard. Hussein was arrested in 2003 and executed in 2006.
• The Woobie: Simon. First his parents are killed and he's left as an orphan. A thing he doesn't even seem to realize. Then he's targeted by sociopathic hitmen who won't cease to hunt him until he's dead. If he wasn't for Art's aid he would have surely been killed.

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