Stephen King’s ‘Mr. Mercedes’ hits small screen Wednesday
In adapting Stephen King’s novel, “Mr. Mercedes,” into a series for the AT&T Audience streaming series starting at 8 p.m. Wednesday, executive producer David E. Kelley managed to infuse the production with the same cast of broken characters so careful described in the book. Although some elements have been changed, the key conflict between a retired police detective and the psychopath he never caught remains intact.
There’s a laundry list of elements from King’s book that Kelley kept in the series. Makes sense. “Mr. Mercedes” became an immediate No. 1 hit on the New York Times best-seller list when it was published in June 2014.
All of those transferences go into making the streaming version of “Mr. Mercedes” a compelling look into the mind of a mad man and the man he’s trying to drive mad. Harry Treadaway’s portrayal of the man who drove a stolen car through a crowd, killing 16, mixes the creepiness of Norman Bates with the eye for detail of Dexter Morgan. In “Mr. Mercedes” he bounces between being a narcissistic mass murder who shows incredible skills in taunting his targets and the sexually and emotionally abused son of a woman (Kelly Lynch) who lives in her own state mental flux.
Equally as strong is Brendan Gleeson who takes on the role of Bill Hodges, a highly decorated detective struggling with retirement because he was not able to arrest the killer who dubbed himself Mr. Mercedes.
Hodges goes into rants about the lack of respect in the world that are really field by his linger frustrations.
Just as in the book, this is a world of people struggling to find their place. Brady has no control of his life whether it be at work in an electronics store or at home. In both places, he must give in to the relentless assault by his boss and mother. His only escape is in the basement at home where he creates the tools he needs to strike back at the world.
All of those elements make “Mr. Mercedes” a fascination look into a world where two strong-willed people — one driven by the darkness that lives in his heart and the other by the darkness that has invaded his life — are looking for their own definition of peace. The question is whether it will be found in a violent manner or not.