s3276169
Brendan Gleason is an excellent actor. Indeed, this series has attracted a strong cast in general. That said, you can't insert good actors into a poor series and expect it to change the outcome. Mr Mercedes is yet another adaptation of Stephen King who, more than any horror writer I can think of, has had his work make its way onto screens both large and small. Frankly in my opinion King is over represented and indeed not everything he has written, in my opinion, is good. I feel Mr Mercedes is a case in question. The back story to my mind is predictable, ugly and as a consequence, simply not enjoyable. By the end of the first episode I was bored and repulsed, in equal measure. So much so I called it quits. As it stands, a four out of ten from me.
p-seed-889-188469
I have just finished watching the fifth episode of Mr Mercedes and although there are 5 more episodes to go this will be my last. I think I've given it a fair trial and that my assumption that things are not going to change for the better is valid.Having read only a smattering of Stephen King's output of 64 books I am my no means an aficionado of his works. There is no doubt the man is a genius, but surely it is only reasonable to expect that over such a voluminous output some of his works will be more inspired than others. While it is possible that the television series has massacred the book, since Stephen King is credited as executive producer that seems unlikely. If that is the case then Mr Mercedes the book would appear not to be at the peak of Stephen King's output.I gather Mr Mercedes is supposed to be a departure from Stephen Kings' characteristic "supernatural" genre we all know and love. Personally I would disagree, for while it may be free of parallel time/space continuums, evil cars and people with psychic powers the characters in Mr Mercedes, and the world they inhabit, are so unbelievable as to fall into the category of "super-natural". Given that every possible combination and permutation of possible plot elements has already been used millions of times before it is no criticism to say that Mr Mercedes, and indeed every book written, must at its basic level be a string of clichés. We've seen cops who are obsessed with the "case that got away" before. We have seen murderous villains before. We have seen gumshoes before. It is the detail that is added to these cliches that distinguishes one book from another and makes some books better than others. I have no doubt that the detail in Mr Mercedes the book elevates it to something out of the ordinary, but if so, those elements have been lost in translation in the TV series.
The protagonist, Bill Hodges, as portrayed in this series has absolutely no appeal. In fact he is revealed early on to be a fundamentally horrible person by the way he harasses an innocent woman, contributing in no small way to her suicide. From an act of such cruelty there can be no return for the character of Bill Hodges, he is irredeemable as a human being. Five episodes in and he has still done nothing, he has not been clever, he has not shown any insight. His greatest feat of detective work in 5 episodes has been high-lighting text (which someone else provided) containing the word "apple" with a blue high-lighter. Apart from that he has simply bullied, raged, thumped, sworn, sworn again and then sworn some more. If he is supposed to be a "gumshoe" he has failed miserably. Message to Mr Hodges - your average gumshoe may be aloof, dishevelled, irascible, cynical, have drinking problems, be down on his luck and down at heel, and maybe not even that bright. But he does NOT rage at people, he does NOT swear at people and he does not harass innocent people to suicide. Most importantly at some level people engage with him, sympathise with him, and root for him. In all these aspects, and more, Mr Hodges fails miserably. Remarkably, for a man of no visual or actual appeal, this guy is a veritable chick magnet, a source of hope for the rest of us ugly, aging hippies to be sure, but really? What planet are we on here? The villain is more than unlikeable, which I suppose is as it should be. But he is at least "interesting", whereas Bill Hodges is not, and, credit where credit is due, the actor does a great job. He is generally to be found in 3 scenarios, the computer shop, which is peopled by ridiculous, obnoxious, and irrelevant people, his home, which is peopled by his ridiculous and irrelevant mother, and his car. Oh, and of course, I almost forgot, in of all things in an ICE CREAM VAN! Just like in real life, right? He may not possess "supernatural" powers in the generally accepted sense but thanks to the powers of technology he is in effect a "wizard", seemingly performing supernatural activities. Amongst his other achievements he seems to have created what appears to be the definitive "Universal Remote" which can control anything in the World. Haha! If that isn't "supernatural" I don't know what is. Despite the fact that he never seems to actually do anything somehow he manages to create super-elaborate computer generated montages that would in reality take weeks to generate. We see him and his mother do interesting things together, which at Episode 5 seems not only irrelevant but totally gratuitous and a desperate attempt to be "shocking". The only interesting aspect of this little distraction is that it demonstrates yet again the hypocrisy and double standards in the wonderful world of gender issues for there is not a snowball's chance in Hell we would be shown a father doing this to either his daughter or son. If the justification for the inclusion of this tawdry aspect is to give some sort of back story as to why our villain is a villain I would argue that there is only one thing scarier than a villain who kills for a reason and that is a villain who kills for no reason.We don't know why our villain has waited 2 years to suddenly start harassing Bill Hodges, or indeed why it should be Bill Hodges he is harassing, since it would appear from the flashbacks it is Bill Hodge's sidekick who headed the investigation and that Bill Hodge's greatest contribution to the case was sitting back silently in a comfy chair drinking tea. We don't know why our villain, who clearly has issues that torment him on a continual basis, decided to have 2 years off being a villain. We don't know why a villain who's MO has all the subtlety of ramming innocent people with a car should suddenly be playing physiological games through a computer. None of this makes sense. In amongst all this we have the usual suspects, Bill Hodge's annoying cardboard cut-out ex police partner, the brilliant gardener/nerd who talks like no adolescent I have met in real life, his father who talks like no-one I have met in my life, the dying mother of Bill Hodges main squeeze, who talks and acts like no-one I have met in my life, the villain's obnoxious computer store colleague who acts and talks like no-one I have met in my life, the computer store boss who acts like no one I have met in my life, and of course the obligatory, patent-pending Stephen King bully, who acts and talks like no-one I have ever met in my life and who meets a messy fate in his car.I have never understood Stephen King's obsession with swearing but if we took out all the cuss words in Mr Mercedes it could pretty much be filmed as a silent movie. Sorry, people may indeed swear in real life, but they do not do it with the frequency, ferocity and downright cruelness on display here. If the point was to be "authentic" than Stephen King misses it by a country mile.Many of Stephen King's books have been satisfactorily condensed to 100 minute movies and perhaps this is Mr Mercedes major fault. It is just too flabby. There is just too much irrelevant stuff going on that does not progress the story. While I might be hooked by a taut cat and mouse game between Bill Hodges and the villain, I am not the least interested in all these side stories and back stories. I don't care about the Computer Shop full stop. I don't care about the bully. I don't care about the villain's mother. In a nutshell, dissapointing.
fallguy_jack
The butchery of Stephen King's work was supposed to spare this, at least from what I was told and read. It was sadly not the case. There is no horror, no thrills, it was just uncomfortable for extended periods. If uncomfortableness is what the director was going for, then well done... I guess. That seems more like a low budget script tactic than a King adaptation, or at least it did before recent times. Tactic: Make the characters/scenes gross and uncomfortable to look at and then make the scene way, way too long. The same effect could have been achieved with a really slow slide show. The worst part is that there were plenty of actually terrifying things in the story that could have easily been capitalized on - they were plot points for crying out loud! But no, totally glossed over in favor of overly long shots that had already made their points in seconds. But no, sit there for a while and wait.The cast did a great job, there is no fault in the acting. The director would create multi-car piles on single lane one way streets. I really had to force myself to get through the second half of the episodes, from 4 in two days to the last 6 over two weeks.Caveat Emptor.
