Mercury Rising

Contrived, slapdash and utterly false, this action thriller with a cynically soft center exemplifies the worst end-product of contemporary Hollywood formulas. Authority-hating FBI renegade Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis) has a thing for abandoned children, or so the explanatory opening sequence is meant to make us believe: Jeffries, who's infiltrated a militia group, must watch helplessly as two slack-jawed teens in thrall to their wacko dad get killed in an FBI showdown designed to recall Ruby Ridge. Anyway, for his intemperate behavior Jeffries gets busted down to wire-tapping detail (he decked a commanding officer and the department's shrinks have labeled him a para...