Mercy (2000) Sin in the Suburbs - Canadian Style

Written and Directed by Damian Harris (Bad Company), and based on the novel by David L. Lindsey. Cinematography was by Manuel Teran, and the Music by BC Smith.

The film stars Ellen Barkin (Down By Law, The Big Easy, Siesta, Johnny Handsome, Sea of Love, Switch) as Detective Cathy Palmer. Wendy Crewson (Niagara Motel) as Bernadine Mello, Peta Wilson as Vickie Kittrie, Karen Young (9½ Weeks) as Mary, Danielle Marie Straus as Young Mary, Julian Sands (Siesta) as Dr. Dominick Broussard, Stephen Baldwin (Last Exit To Brooklyn) as The Mechanic. 

Ellen Barkin as Detective Cathy Palmer

Peta Wilson as Vickie Kittrie

Julian Sands as Dr. Dominick Broussard

Karen Young as Mary

With Beau Starr as Lieutenant Fritch, Marshall Bell as Gil Reynolds, Bill MacDonald as Detective John Beck, Stewart Bick as Detective Cushing, Ellen-Ray Hennessy as Murial Farr, Lara Daans as Dorothy Samenov, Claire Burton as Sandra Moser, Fulvio Cecere as Detective Leeland, Michael Fletcher as Wendell, Zehra Leverman as Terry Ross, Linda V. Carter as Helena, Melanie Nicholls-King as Jane, Kevin Rushton as Clyde Barbish, Dorothy Bennie as Miss Dawes, Doug Lennox as Mr. Kittrie, Jacqueline McLeod as Mrs. Kittrie, Lacey Von Erich as Vicki's Sister. 

The credit sequence pays homage to split screen Noirs Marlowe and The Boston Strangler. We catch glimpses of some high society gatherings, private clubs, woman's lounges, that segue to a woman in a hallway, coming back to her apartment. 

She then draws her drapes closed and undresses getting ready for bed all lit in chiaroscuro. a fade out when she flips off the lights. 

The final splits we see are depicting what looks like a credit card being slipped under a door, and a shot of the empty hall.

Story

Suburbia. Fall. A police cruiser, lights flashing, is partially tunneling under hardwood shade trees, Swirling the yellow and gold fallen leaves as it passes over asphalt blue. Crime scene. Murder.

Detective Palmer is complaining to her partner Detective Beck, that the squeal should have went to them and not Leland and Cushing.

Deceased Dorothy Ann Samenov. 38 years old. Executive at Transitel a computer software firm. 

Lived alone. Found by a patrolman Van Meder and a friend Vickie Kittrie. Last Friday Samenov and Kittrie, went for drinks after work, Dorothy left the bar at 6:30. That's the last time anybody saw her. She didn't show up for work. Kittrie got worried. 

We've been getting brief glimpses of a naked woman laying on her bed.

Cushing: So what do you think, is this the same boy? 

Cathy Palmer: What's been touched here?

Cushing: Just the carpet under our shoes and not very much of that.

Cathy Palmer: So what do you think John?

John Beck: I think she's going to her grave wide awake.

Cushing: Is this the same as Maywood Hotel or what?

John Beck: Yea but she's been knocked around a bit more.

Cushing: With the eyes open like that? The other tied down?

John Beck: Same marks same as the wrists

Cathy Palmer [her hand in a latex glove is pushing down on the dead woman's abdomen}: No evidence of a struggle

Cushing: Maybe she was into it?

Cathy Palmer: Not this much.

We get a slow reveal of the nude body of Dorothy. She arranged with her feet together laid out with her hand over her breasts. Rope swollen wrists. our low angle of Detective Palmer's preliminary examination shifts to the reverse angle view displaying the victim's body covered in what looks like circular human bite wounds.  

Cathy Palmer: Her eyes aren't open, her eyelids have been cut off.

An argument ensues when Palmer tells Cushing that "we'll take it from here." Reasoning that it's part of her investigation now because they had the first victim. Cushing wants in and accuses Palmer of hogging the limelight especially now after a Peoples Magazine article that's supposedly coming out.

Palmer doesn't answer and just heads out the door and down to a large dinning room. There we first meet Vickie Kittrie. 

Palmer finds out that Friday night they went out for drinks at Sinurelli's. Palmer asks if she used it as a pickup spot. Kittrie, tells her no, just to unwind after work. 

Cathy Palmer: Vickie, you found Dorothy?

Vickie: Yes.

Cathy Palmer: Saw what she looks like.

Vickie [starting to cry]: Yes.

Cathy Palmer: Vickey is there anything you can tell us about Dorothy's private life that might make any sense of what you saw?

Vickie: Does it look like it makes any sense?

Does it look like it makes any sense?

We cut to crime scene video playing on a TV in a briefing room. Cathy Palmer narrates as we pan to a second TV... 

Cathy Palmer: On Thursday October 11th Sondra Moser kisses her husband and two sons goodnight, tells the maid that she'll be back in a couple of hours, because Thursday is her yoga night. She was found murdered at the Maywood Hotel the next morning in a suite she rented with a fake I.D. On Friday October 4th, 

In the room are detectives John Beck and also Cushing and Leyland.

Dorothy Ann Samenov has some drinks with friends and is then murdered later the same night in her home. Ya got a rich housewife and a high powered company executive. Different life styles different friends, nothing that connects them. 

Chief: Nothing matches?

John Beck: We got geography, they both lived about a mile apart. Same social background.

Chief: This is all low risk stuff, we got any trace evidence? 

Cushing: The bodies were washed. No semen, no saliva, no prints.

Chief: Ok you all are on a task force now.

We cut to woman, apparently in post coital bliss, we visually discover, since she is arching her back while pulling her panties on, and playing with the top rim. Lifting it up and letting it snap down, while laying on a black leather couch. For background noise we hear a fly zipper "zip".

We start to pull back revealing a man getting dressed. We see we are in an office. A psychiatrists office.

Bernadine [turning on her side]: Free association time. One time when I was a child I was staying at my aunt and uncles house for the summer. It was in the middle of the afternoon and... I went into mu Aunt Seal's room, to get a sewing basket. I thought there was no one there. And when I walked in there was a man standing there. And I mean I didn't know who it was. And my Aunt Seal was lying naked on the bed. She didn't see me and then very slowly he raised a finder to his lips telling me to be quiet, and I backed out of the room and left....

Bernadine swivels and lays back on her back, and covers her forehead with one arm.

Bernadine: My husband is fucking a woman, who has practically no breasts at all. 

Dr. Dominick wipes his face as if he's board.

Bernadine: I've hired an investigator, he's taken pictures. 

Dr. Dominick [fixing himself a drink]: And why did you do that? 

Bernadine: I'm keeping a file, or rather my lawyer is. [notices that he's drinking] Dom, Why didn't you offer me a drink?

Dr. Dominick:  Because I really didn't think you should have one. 

We cut to Palmer laying on Dorothy's bed then going through all her closets spreading out her clothes and jewelry. 

In the false bottom of a closet she finds a locked attaché case. Palmer pries it open and finds it full of S&M bondage toys, and an envelope containing images of bondage depictions. Ahhh!

Cut to Cathy Palmer in an bar. She's not unwinding she is aroused. She catches the eye of a mechanic. The mechanic, no dummy, comes sliding on over.

Mechanic: So you're a cop?

Cathy Palmer: Yeah. You like that?

"Yea you like that?"

Mechanic: Yeah. What do you work? Vice? 

Cathy Palmer:  Homicide.

Mechanic: That's a little weird, isn't it? I mean you being a woman and all. 

Cathy Palmer: What do you do? 

Mechanic: Mechanic. I fix things.

Cathy Palmer: Say you get an old lady. She comes into the shop and she's driving a 72 Chevy. She's hearing a little ticking noise. Turns out she's got a busted transmission. It's going to cost her two thousand bucks only she doesn't have the money. What are you gonna do.

Mechanic: Listen I don't fucking care.

Cathy Palmer: You're looking at someone's mother pal. And all you see is an old lady with a busted up car and not enough cash. All I ever see, peoples dead mothers, there's a name on a file, guy in a dumpster, Girl in a landfill, little dead boy in a park. Can you fix that? Huh?

"Can you fix that? Huh?"

We cut to Cathy and the mechanic having rough sex. She unwinds. 

We watch as she comes home and with a drink in hand looks over her evidence. She falls asleep. She dreams of one of the victims with man it startles her awake. 

Dream Sequence

We cut to Dr. Dominick's office where the doctor is listening to Mary a patient on the leather couch telling him about a dream she had. 

Cut to Cathy Palmer continuing her investigations. From another session with Vickie Kittrie, Palmer discovers that Vickie got her job through Dorothy, and that when she first started working they lived together for a while. She also gets the name of the only significant guy in Dorothy's life, who was married at the time. 

Cut to Palmer questioning Gill Reynolds. He tells her the details of his and Dorothy's relationship. She asks if he knew about her preferences for S&M and Gil replies not until the very end of their relationship. 

Palmer sighs and pulls out the envelope containing the S&M pics. Palmer asks Gil if he's the guy in the mask. He replies no.

Following the picture lead, Palmer gets a call from one of her contacts and she arranges a meet with a dominatrix.  

Palmer gets a tour of the facilities. The dom identifies Dorothy in the pics and informs Palmer that she didn't come with a man but with another woman. 

The dom also has video proof from a doorbell rigged security camera verifying that Dorothy came with Vickie. 

When Palmer confronts Vicky, Vickie admits that they were lovers and that they both knew the first victim Sondra Moser. When Palmer asks if they were lovers too Vickie explains that they were all part of a group of Lipstick Lesbians, professional women who liked to get together without men.

Palmer Tells Vickie that she now wants head and pubic hair samples. Cathy tells her she can go into the bathroom to clip herself but Vickie acting a bit belligerent, pulls down her bottoms in front of Cathy.

We cut to Vickie getting high and then going out on the prowl in the woman's section of a department store where she targets Bernadette because she's wearing a jade with gold dragons necklace.  

Vickie complements Bernadette on her necklace. Bernadette is highly flattered. 

When Bernadette takes her selections to a dressing room Vickie boldly follows her in side and after pulling down Bernadette's panties goes down on her. A little tongue in groove action. How Noir is this?

Then we cut again to Mary  telling Dr. Dom about her relationship with her stepfather. Its revealed that we are seeing a flash back when the patients voice slows down and we cut to Dr. Dom changing batteries in his voice recorder. 

He turns it on the voice is normal and the flashback with the patient continues, telling about an incident in the pool with her stepfather. All the while her mother sitting poolside and apparently acquiesces.

Dom pauses the tape. 

We cut back to police headquarters. The team is working the case. Palmer gets a call from Vickie telling her that she was sorry about lying. She tells Cathy that there is a meeting of the women she was telling her about tonight, and asks if she wants to go and see?

Cathy Palmer: Are you asking me on a date? Give me the address and I'll meet you there.

Later at the address, Cathy and Vickie get into a convo about unwinding and testosterone. They walk around with Vickie getting touchy and feely with Cathy as she introduces her around. When Cathy gets paged she tells Vickie she has to leave. 

Cathy was paged by Beck and Cushing. They inform her what she already knows about Vickie, and she informs them of the lesbian women's group. She decides that they will put a tap and a tail, on Vickie. 

At the same time we get a glimpse of Vickie laying on a bed with Mary the last patient we saw with Dr. Dom. 

The tail and tap pick up a meeting that Vickey arranges with Gil. 

Gill tells her that she owes him for not mentioning her relationship with Dorothy. Vickie reveals that the police already know. He gives her a hotel and room number. She obliges. Driving her red BMW to the hotel.

Tailing Vickie

Cathy watches Vickie wearing a black wig and see-through oriental dress dancing in a hotel window.

Cathy watches the performance, then figures out it's for Gill. With binoculars, she searches the reflections of the building she can see in the hotel windows and from the position of Vickie's head spots Gill holding a sniper rifle. 

In the window refection she sees Gil take aim with a sniper rifle and shoot at Vickie. When Cathy reaches the hotel room, Its just what it appears to be, a paintball smack through the window spraying Vickie.

Both Vickie and Gill make a clean getaway.

Later Cathy asks Vickie to meet her for a drink. 

At the bar we get a flash - daydream triggered by Cathy seeing the woman who came between her and her husband. In the dream Cathy hauls off and punches her rival. 

All Vickie reads is a change in expression and body language. Cathy suggests that they go somewhere else. Vickie counters that it's Friday night and everyplace will be packed and they will be screaming at each other all night. Vickie suggests that they go to her place.

Back at the Shrinks we now see Bernadine telling Doc Dom that she lied that last time she was there. She explains that it wasn't a strange man she caught her aunt with but a woman. 

She also confesses that she met a younger woman at a department store, and had sex with her just an hour before their last sex session and that she never felt that way with any man. The Doc looks a little miffed.

Back at Cathy's, Vickie asks Cathy about the woman in the bar. Cathy explains that her husband had an affair with her. Vickie mentions that she said she wasn't married or divorced. Cathy explains that a drunk and a Buick beat me to it, before I could get a divorce. 

It starts going Noirsville when Vickie starts putting the moves on Cathy. Cathy seems to respond up to the point where Vickie has Cathy pinned against the counter and beginning to go down on her. 

Vickie's seduction of Cathie

Vickie is squatting now pulling Cathy's panties down with her teeth.

Cathy pushes her away with her knee. "Stop!"

"Why?"

Vickie: Why? 

Cathy Palmer: This can't happen.

Vickie: Why did you ask me here?

Cathy Palmer: To Talk.

Vickie: About what? What is it that you want to talk about?

Cathy Palmer: I already told you. 

Vickie: You wanna know who I think killed Dorothy and Sondra? or you wanna know what it was like to fuck them?

Cathy Palmer: I wanna know what you're hiding?

Vickie: I come from a home environment where the term family love meant something a little different. I left my little sister behind to take my place. Can you picture that? Can You?

The next victim is Bernadine Mello. 

Noirsville 

This is a better than average Serial Killer Noir that throws a lot of false leads at you. Barkin and Petra Wilson shine. It explores the damage that can be caused by childhood trauma. Entertaining with a nice soundtrack  7/10