‘Mosquito Coast’: A Gripping Family-On-The-Run Story Is A Prologue Akin To ‘Ozark’ & ‘Breaking Bad’ [Review]

Much has been written about how the Prestige TV era often discards the episodic format of old to present seasons that play more like long movies with credit breaks every hour or so. Creator Neil Cross (“Luther”) clearly had this in mind while conceiving his take on “The Mosquito Coast.” Unfolding more like a 7-hour movie than a traditional season of television, this riff on the Paul Theroux novel, memorably adapted once in 1986 by Peter Weir (starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, and River Phoenix), is a taut, gripping story of a family on the run that owes more to modern dramas like “Breaking Bad” and particularly “Ozark” than it does to its origins. Like those shows, “The Mosquito Coast” centers on an arguably selfish patriarch whose rash decisions lead his family into the webs of international drug cartels. Fans of the source may bristle at how far afield this production veers from it, but it’s a thrilling season of television that sets up a potentially even stronger one down the dusty road.

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