Mercury Rising is a 1998 American action thriller film starring Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin. Directed by Harold Becker, the movie is based on Ryne Douglas Pearson's 1996 novel originally published as Simple Simon. Willis plays Art Jeffries, an undercover FBI agent who protects a nine year old boy with autism who is targeted by government assassins after he cracks a top secret government code. The film opens with a hostage situation in South Dakota where FBI Agent Art Jeffries , who, as the inside man, protects a 5 year old kid named James while trying to talk a bank robber named Edgar... Halstrom into surrendering. However, the FBI task force kills the robbers and James. Jeffries confronts his superior, who tells him he'd report to Washington. A cryptographic code called "Mercury" was created by the National Security Agency and allegedly so complex that its creators believe no computer on Earth can decipher it. Originally it was created during the Reagan Administration as a test to keep the United States' highest priority secrets under wraps.
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| Release date: | April 3, 1998 |
| Directed by: | Harold Becker |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 112 Minutes |
| Producer: | Brian Grazer |
| Editor: | Peter Honess |
| Music by: | John Barry |
| Cinematography: | Michael Seresin |
| Screenplay by: | Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal |
| Estimated budget: | $57,000,000 |
| Adapted from: | Simple Simon |
| Genre: | Thriller, Action |