Mercury Rising (1998)

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, which was the working title of the film. Willis plays Art Jeffries, an undercover FBI agent who protects a nine-year-old autistic boy, Simon Lynch (played by Miko Hughes), who is targeted by government assassins after he cracks a top secret government code.

The film is the first of two collaborations between Willis and Baldwin, the second film being Motherless Brooklyn.

The film was released on April 3, 1998. It received mostly negative reviews.

During a bank robbery hostage situation, an undercover FBI agent, Art Jeffries (Bruce Willis), attempts unsuccessfully to negotiate for more time to defuse the situation. The FBI storms the bank killing the robbers, but Jeffries's cover is blown, so he is given a boring desk job.

A nine-year-old autistic savant boy, Simon Lynch (Miko Hughes) is given an adult puzzle book by his teacher, and deciphers with his eye a phone number in a numerical puzzle. It was published in the magazine by two National Security Agency code creators, Dean Crandell and Leo Pedranski, to see if anyone could decipher it. The code, called "Mercury", is allegedly so complex that its creators believed no computer on Earth could decipher it. Simon phones the number, and Pedranski and Crandell report the situation to their boss, division chief Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Kudrow (Alec Baldwin). He severely rebukes the pair for their unauthorized actions, and describes Simon and his abilities as a national security threat. Two assassins, Peter Burrell and Shayes, are deployed by Kudrow to terminate the boy and his parents, Martin and Jenny Lynch.

Posing as a police detective, Burrell gains entry to the Lynch household and unceremoniously shoots both Simon's mother and father with a silenced pistol. He is unable to find Simon himself when he searches the house. Upon hearing approaching sirens (Martin was able to call 911 before dying), Burrell stages a murder-suicide and is driven away from the house by Shayes.

Jeffries is sent to investigate and finds Simon in a hidden crawl space in his bedroom closet. Simon is taken to a protection ward at the hospital, where Burrell poses as a doctor and makes another attempt on Simon's life. Simon is saved by the timely arrival of Jeffries, who, upon meeting Burrell and deducing his true nature, flees the premises with the boy. Later, while on a train, Shayes attacks the pair and is killed by Jeffries in self-defense.

The NSA, under Kudrow's direction, frames Jeffries as kidnapper of Simon. However, fellow agent Tommy Jordan, knows that he isn't. Jeffries borrows Jordan's car and takes Simon back to his house. Simon again calls the telephone number written into the code and Jeffries is able to talk to Crandell and Pedranski. Crandell arranges a meeting via encoded e-mail at the Wrigley Building. The next morning Jeffries goes to the meeting, leaving Simon under the care of a woman in a coffee shop, Stacey Siebring. Jeffries meets Crandell who tells him about "Mercury" and Kudrow, but Crandell is shot dead by Burrell before he can reveal everything.

Jeffries returns to the coffee shop, and Stacey says she and Simon have become friends and Simon agrees. Jeffries and Simon then leave, but later in the middle of the night, Jeffries and Simon go to Stacey's house, asking for a place to stay. Stacey reluctantly agrees but tells Jeffries that she was going on a business trip to Des Moines the next morning.

Meanwhile, Pedranski, having learned Crandell's fate, also tries to reveal Kudrow's unlawful actions by writing letters on a typewriter: one to Jeffries and a carbon copy to the Senate Oversight Committee. But Burrell tracks Pedranski down and murders him as well, and confiscates the letters. However, the assassin overlooks the carbon copies, which his girlfriend, NSA analyst Emily, takes to the FBI. Jordan discreetly arranges for her to meet with Jeffries to show them both the carbon paper of the letter, which, being covered in Pedranski's fingerprints, is crucial evidence. After the meeting Jeffries gives Stacey Jordan's number in case of an emergency. Jeffries goes to Kudrow’s home during his birthday party, and demands that Kudrow announce on national TV that the Mercury Encryption Project is a failure.

Jordan, under Jeffries suggestion, arranges for Simon to go into the Witness Protection Program. After the meeting, Jeffries calls Jordan, who explains that the Witness Protection meeting is going to happen, though they are unaware that their conversation is being monitored by Kudrow. When Jeffries returns and finds Stacey and Simon gone, he learns from Jordan that they are not in any danger and will meet them at a pick-up point, just as Jordan is given an order to head to the FBI director's office. There Kudrow tries to have FBI SAC (Special Agent in Charge) Lomax help turn the tables on Jeffries by using his authority and the fact that Jordan arranged the Witness Protection under false pretenses. He tells them that the NSA is taking over the protection program.

After Kudrow leaves, Jordan shows the carbon paper evidence to Lomax and confirms that the fingerprint markings on it were Pedranski's, now fully validating the evidence against Kudrow. Jeffries, with Jordan and an FBI task force's help, sets a trap at the meeting spot. Armed with a machine gun, Burrell fires at the FBI squad resulting in a shootout, while Kudrow attempts to escape with Simon on a pre-arranged helicopter. Jordan protects Stacey from the killer's fire. Jeffries leaps from the chopper, knocking Kudrow back, then disarming him when he tries to shoot the boy. They fight on the roof, but Simon walks to the edge of the roof and gets Kudrow's gun, giving it to Jeffries who forces the corrupt NSA chief back. Burrell is impaled and slashed to death by glass shards when the helicopter's propellers shatters the windows in front of him. In a last-ditch effort, Kudrow picks up Simon to throw him off the building, but is shot multiple times at point-blank range by Jeffries. He falls to his death, but not before crashing through a glass ceiling. Jeffries later visits Simon (now living with foster parents) at his school. He embraces the FBI agent as a welcome friend, having finally accepted him as a person he trusts.