David A.R. White plays John Davis, who we meet on the day of his release from prison. John is picked up by his former partner-in-crime, Rome (Eric Roberts), already planning for what John insists will be his last job. It's a counterfeit money scheme that Rome wants John to set up, a task for which he sticks $50,000 into John's hands. After getting the ball rolling, though, John decides that the allure of an honest life presented by a real-estate opportunity in Florida is stronger than the pull of the con, so he tries to escape with the money, only to have Rome find out and chase him, and while John is trying to escape, he loses the $50,000 down a storm drain. With nowhere to go, John looks up his estranged twin brother Jeremiah (also White) and heads to his house, but Rome follows him and ends up taking Jeremiah back to the city instead by accident. The pair both end up having to take over each other's lives (in Jeremiah's case, by necessity, in John's case, in secret), getting a first-person glimpse of how the other side lives.

Despite the eye-rolling first scene and the unavoidable goofiness of the twin-brother conceit, the movie holds together on the strength of two elements. First, we have White's strong performance: the actor (who looks like Paul Rudd) does a good job of finding a tone for the grungy criminal John (while keeping within the movie's wholesome values and PG-13 rating), and the happy-but-unadventurous Jeremiah. In both roles, White is careful to avoid overacting, keeping both brothers realistic and grounded even during scenes where other actors would try to take over the scene with "powerful angry acting", and he does small things with his voice and attitude to differentiate which character is which. It's definitely not Oscar-subtle or a jaw-dropping masterpiece of characterization, but you can usually tell the difference without any obvious visual cues (like clothing) when they're both in the same place. Looking at White's Wikipedia entry, it's not surprising that he's spent most of his career making other Christian movies, but I'd say he has enough charisma to break through into mainstream roles if he wanted to.

The other element is Jon Gunn's direction, which is more stylish and memorable than the stuff I've seen in movies from directors who are definitely trying harder to be clever. He's got a couple of good slow-motion montages set to music that work very well in that first hour, and he does a sorta-clever thing with freeze frame to highlight various actions and objects. Gunn stages fairly brief but entertaining action sequence with some car crashes and a motorcycle stunt as well, and a nicely performed (although certainly not groundbreaking) scene where the big con is laid out, with Roberts essentially narrating a fictional vision of the way it's all meant to work out.

Unfortunately, the plot is a huge MacGuffin that the movie doesn't know how to use, and the con ends up becoming muddled as the brothers work out their long-standing personal differences. Before heading to his brother's house, After Jeremiah is kidnapped, John tries to scheme ways to get it back while posing as Jeremiah, encouraging Jeremiah's church to make donations to help inner-city youth and pocketing the dough. Meanwhile, since Rome can't find John, he simply puts John's responsibilities in his brother's hands, demanding the $50,000 from Jeremiah instead. It's kind of frustrating how much time is spent on this one piece of the plot when the film ultimately writes it off. Relationships in the John-posing-as-Jeremiah side of things are also an issue; the best-friend/roommate arc with Jeremiah and Tex (Shiek-Mahmud Bey) isn't well-established enough for us to care when Tex gets suspicious, and while Jeremiah's girlfriend Sam (Cynthia Watros) has a really charming roller derby date with "Jeremiah", the tired marriage/moving melodramatics that pepper her whole plotline aren't comeplling. Lastly, the payoff for the big con is confusing and muddled; just before it goes off, John and Jeremiah finally confront one another (so the twins can fight/White can play both at the same time), and the train-of-thought that the characters go through doesn't make much sense to me. By the time the epilogue rolled around, my goodwill for the writing had all dried up.

Since Mercy Streets, director Jon Gunn has gone on to co-direct the documentary My Date With Drew and and a film called Like Dandelion Dust starring Mira Sorvino, so I'm pleased to see he's still working, and David A.R. White, as I previously mentioned, continues to appear in Christian movies. Again, I'm not religious, but a good movie is a good movie, and Mercy Streets comes close to being an excellent crossover; making its points about religion and faith without belaboring them and finding time to take the plot seriously as well as the message. This isn't quite that film, but it's good enough to reassure those looking for it that it might be right around the corner.

The DVD
The front cover of Mercy Streets is pretty clever, although I feel like the image needs to be pulled back a little farther if people are meant to get it just glancing at it on the shelf (the closer you are, the more defined the guns are, and the brain separates them from the cross image). The back is standard Sony, with several little pictures off to the side of a bigger one that tacks up the whole rear, big quote at the top, small box copy, billing block, technical grid. There is no insert inside the Eco-Box packaging. The artwork also seems to skirt the fact that this is a limited-release movie from 2000 and not a direct-to-video release from 2009, although to be fair, I don't know where you'd bring it up.

The Video and Audio
Ouch. Mercy Streets is presented in 1.85:1 non-anamorphic widescreen, and the transfer is soft, flat and speckled with print damage. Shadowy faces and dark rooms are a poorly delineated mush, and colors are washed out and dull (maybe all the blood is meant to have dried already!), aside from the occasional overcranked white text caption. None of the flaws with the transfer seem to be compression related or digital, and, yeah, I guess it looks perfectly watchable, but the lack of 16x9 enhancement is embarrassing, especially from a distributor as big as Sony.

Sound is 2.0 Stereo, but the movie at least sounds a little better than it looks. Since this is a stereo track rather than a 5.1 mix, it's all very basic, with perfectly audible dialogue and nice-sounding music. No subtitles of any kind are included, but the packaging displays the Closed Captioning logo for those with televisions that will display them. The Extras
Fans should be surprised and pleased to find that this disc is sort of packed with bonus features. Sony has included three of the four basics of DVD bonus features: an audio commentary, a making-of featurette (42:42), and deleted scenes (17:27) (the fourth "basic" would have been a theatrical trailer).

The audio commentary is provided by director Jon Gunn and David A.R. White. It's kind of like a perfect theoretical model of an audio commentary rather than an actual audio commentary, with the two guys being presented with a scene and one or both recounting one of the challenges of shooting it, which is really straightforward, and frankly, not all that interesting after awhile. I didn't hear either of them comment on anything current (like, say, Roberts' appearance in The Dark Knight), so I imagine this commentary is 9 years old, and I might guess that a track recorded now, with one or two additional participants, might have been more interesting.

The featurette, called "The Making of Mercy Streets", is a pretty good overview of the production, including interviews with all of the major members of the cast and crew. It's laid back and funny, not weighed down by film footage and/or back-patting and empty praise. It also serves as further evidence that David A.R. White is just a nice, friendly dude. How can anyone not like that guy?

12 deleted scenes include a weirdly psuedo-violent bit where Samantha plays a video game and riveting lost sequences where both John and Jeremiah lie around trying to go to sleep! The only two bits of real interest are Jeremiah getting talked into praying for a car accident victim and Samantha being shown the truth about John and Jeremiah.

Previews for An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving, The Lost and Found Family, Faith Like Potatoes, Not Easily Broken, Fireproof and are accessible from the special features menu. No theatrical trailer for Mercy Streets is included.

Conclusion
If Mercy Streets had been able to hold it together all the way to the finish line, it'd probably go down as a recommended experience. In fact, since this has a surprisingly good DVD package, if you've seen it and liked the movie more than I did, I imagine you'll be pretty pleased with what Sony has provided. Still, that third act really stops the movie dead in its tracks, so if you aren't already a fan, I'm gonna have to say that one should skip this disc unless it's on television and potential buyers can sneak an advance peek at the film itself.