PLOT IN A NUTSHELL: Allie Fox (Harrison Ford), an eccentric intellectual, engineer and inventor, is very unhappy with how life in America is going. In fact, he hates it so much that he uproots his family from their nice little home in the middle of anywhere is America to a jungle where he proceeds to build his own idealized utopia, complete with a giant ice maker he calls "Fat Boy". For a brief time the restless Fox is happy and content, but his utopia is doomed to fail, leading to death, destruction, despair, and ruin.
At the time it was released in 1986 director Peter Weir's "The Mosquito Coast" (based on the novel of the same name) got an at best mixed critical response and was a box office failure. Some believed it was because the film just wasn't "box office" material for the average American audience. Most however believed that the film failed due to the presence of Harrison Ford as Allie Fox - a role that, not surprisingly, had been offered to Jack Nicholson before Ford signed on. In the big scheme of the Hollywood game Ford built his career on playing sarcastic yet affable action heroes in big adventure films and thrillers, and by that point he had cemented his place as a pop culture icon with not one but two such roles - lovable rogue Han Solo from Star Wars and rugged archaeologist Indiana Jones. Ford had had some trouble gaining recognition for dramatic roles and had only just recently won praise for his role as a cop on the run in 1985's "Witness" also directed by Peter Weir (as of this writing "Witness" is still the only film where Ford was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar), and was looking for something different when "The Mosquito Coast" came his way. Its' easy to see what drew Ford to the part - Allie Fox was about as far removed from his two most iconic roles - and regular parts - as any part could be, and he was such an unusual, offbeat character, the kind that come along once in a lifetime, that it was simply too good to pass up (Ford has even confessed that he agreed with at least some of the character's criticisms about Americans not working hard enough and selling out their values). And therein lay the danger - after years of watching Ford save the day, either from Nazis or an evil intergalactic Empire, audiences just weren't ready to see him playing such an unsympathetic character.
Which is too bad since this is quite possibly Ford's most dynamic performance, and certainly deserving of an Oscar nomination (Lord knows that lesser actors have won Oscars for lesser performances in lesser films). Ford embraces the unapologetic, self-destructive nature of the always critical Allie Fox with an unabashed go for broke energy that keeps the film charged from start to finish, and he is surrounded by an excellent cast, including the late River Phoenix as his oldest son (Phoenix later played the young version of Ford in 1989's "Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade"). Despite the terrible things Fox does in the name of his dream, even after that dream has obviously failed, Ford finds a way to make you feel sorry for him.
"The Mosquito Coast" is a fascinating examination of how far a man will go to achieve his goal, as strange as that goal is, and a clash of ideologies (as seen in Fox clashing with the Reverend) and the ever fragile nature of family. It is not an easy film to watch, not the kind of film you'd want to watch after a long hard day at work, but it is a beautifully shot, fascinating film, and a unique experience for Harrison Ford fans.
At the time it was released in 1986 director Peter Weir's "The Mosquito Coast" (based on the novel of the same name) got an at best mixed critical response and was a box office failure. Some believed it was because the film just wasn't "box office" material for the average American audience. Most however believed that the film failed due to the presence of Harrison Ford as Allie Fox - a role that, not surprisingly, had been offered to Jack Nicholson before Ford signed on. In the big scheme of the Hollywood game Ford built his career on playing sarcastic yet affable action heroes in big adventure films and thrillers, and by that point he had cemented his place as a pop culture icon with not one but two such roles - lovable rogue Han Solo from Star Wars and rugged archaeologist Indiana Jones. Ford had had some trouble gaining recognition for dramatic roles and had only just recently won praise for his role as a cop on the run in 1985's "Witness" also directed by Peter Weir (as of this writing "Witness" is still the only film where Ford was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar), and was looking for something different when "The Mosquito Coast" came his way. Its' easy to see what drew Ford to the part - Allie Fox was about as far removed from his two most iconic roles - and regular parts - as any part could be, and he was such an unusual, offbeat character, the kind that come along once in a lifetime, that it was simply too good to pass up (Ford has even confessed that he agreed with at least some of the character's criticisms about Americans not working hard enough and selling out their values). And therein lay the danger - after years of watching Ford save the day, either from Nazis or an evil intergalactic Empire, audiences just weren't ready to see him playing such an unsympathetic character.
Which is too bad since this is quite possibly Ford's most dynamic performance, and certainly deserving of an Oscar nomination (Lord knows that lesser actors have won Oscars for lesser performances in lesser films). Ford embraces the unapologetic, self-destructive nature of the always critical Allie Fox with an unabashed go for broke energy that keeps the film charged from start to finish, and he is surrounded by an excellent cast, including the late River Phoenix as his oldest son (Phoenix later played the young version of Ford in 1989's "Indiana Jones & The Last Crusade"). Despite the terrible things Fox does in the name of his dream, even after that dream has obviously failed, Ford finds a way to make you feel sorry for him.
"The Mosquito Coast" is a fascinating examination of how far a man will go to achieve his goal, as strange as that goal is, and a clash of ideologies (as seen in Fox clashing with the Reverend) and the ever fragile nature of family. It is not an easy film to watch, not the kind of film you'd want to watch after a long hard day at work, but it is a beautifully shot, fascinating film, and a unique experience for Harrison Ford fans.