Perhaps the most interesting thing about The Mosquito Coast, which premiered Friday on Apple TV+, is that it stars the nephew of the man who wrote the book on which it is (kinda) based. Justin Theroux ( The Leftovers ) takes the lead in what seems intended as a multiseason variation â adaptation is not really the word â of Paul Theroux s 1981 novel about a paranoid Yankee crank who hauls his family to the jungles of Honduras to escape everything that bothers him about America, which is just about everything.
Where Peter Weir s 1986 big-screen translation, which starred Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix, faithfully followed the lines of the book, as stripped apart and beefed up for television by Luther creator Neil Cross, The Mosquito Coast has become an antiheroic action thriller whose spiritual cousins are shows like Breaking Bad, Ozark and The Americans. (It s not surprising to learn that Cross, who also penned the pre-apocalyptic cop tale Hard S
SERIES REVIEW by Richard Roeper THE MOSQUITO COAST Two stars
A seven-part series premiering a new episode each Friday on AppleTV+.
Like Breaking Bad and Ozark, the Apple TV+ limited series The Mosquito Coast is about an American family of four husband, wife, daughter, son who are thrust into a life of constant danger due to the patriarch s selfish and criminal actions, which he always justifies by saying he s doing it for the good of his loved ones. Breaking Bad and Ozark are among the very best series of the 21st century. The Mosquito Coast is not.
We never even get close to the Mosquito Coast region in The Mosquito Coast, and if there s a Season 2 that goes there, you can count me out. This is the second adaptation of the 1981 novel of the same name by Paul Theroux (the first was the underrated Peter Weir feature film from 1986 starring Harrison Ford in one of his finest performances), and it strays so far from the source material it s a wonder th
Kids ask the darndest questions of course. Why canât they have phones and socialize with others? Why canât they see their grandparents? Why are they being uprooted from their Stockton, California, home while being chased by two NSA agents (Kimberly Elise and James LeGros), entire police units and the Mexican cartel? Over seven episodes, Allie and Margot evade cops, criminals, wifi signals and their childrenâs inquiries, refusing to explain what they did to become Americaâs most wanted. These parents will trust their kids to break them out of police custody, but wonât fill them in on why they need to be broken out.
In âMosquito Coast,â a father on the lam knows best
By Matthew Gilbert Globe Staff,Updated April 28, 2021, 6:04 p.m.
Email to a Friend
Will they make it? WILL THEY MAKE IT?
When a show puts its main characters in grave danger once, maybe twice, well, it can work as an exploration of how they cope with possible death. But when a show is built around the repeated close escapes of the main characters, when viewers are asked to pretend that these people could die again and again when we know deep down they wonât, it can be more exhausting than engaging. Whatâs worse, each near miss has to have increasingly higher stakes, in order to be more thrilling than the previous one. Can they possibly survive THIS one?