As one-word movie titles go, Mercy sits near the top of the popularity heap. A quick glance at IMDb turns up more than a dozen films with the same title, at least eight of them released since 1995.
That 1995 entry, starring John Rubinstein (forever beloved by me as Broadway's original Pippin) and Sam Rockwell, is log-lined as: "A couple of people steal the daughter of a famous lawyer. Now they want money to give her back — but it's not just the money they want. They want revenge."
Or take a 2023 entry, starring Leah Gibson and friend of MAGA Jon Voight, in which "a doctor and former military officer finds herself in a deadly battle for survival when the Irish mob takes control of the hospital where she works and her son is taken hostage."
Documentaries generally don't need an onscreen host. The camera can play host, and real-life stories can tell themselves, with offscreen prompting from research and production, and shrewd direction and editing providing context.
If a filmmaker wants to put the prompting onscreen, there's a delicate art to inserting themselves or an on-camera host into the story without stealing the spotlight from their subject.
Ryan Ashley Lowery, director and creator of the LGBTQ doc Light Up, is anything but delicate in inserting himself and two on-camera host-interviewers -- Michael Mixx and Maurice Eckstein -- into the film's still-compelling portrait of Atlanta's "community of Black same gender loving men and trans women."
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