The Mosquito Coast

Allie Fox (Harrison Ford (Air Force One)) is fed up with America’s bullshit and decides to bail on her.  He packs up his wife, two sons and two daughters to live in South America (Belize I think).  To be fair he doesn’t only seem to be pissed at America but all of the developed world.  He wants to live as far from civilization as possible so he can craft his own new one.

The first thing Allie does is buy a tiny village in the middle of the jungle and puts its inhabitants to work building housing, communal structures, planting fields, an irrigation system, etc.  He’s created his own little paradise without electricity, gas, telephone or any other modern conveniences.  Well, that is until he builds a giant fucking ice machine.  Now he’s got air conditioning and ice.  But some assholes try to muscle in on his territory and they clash and you’ll have to see this to find out what happens.

The story is fascinating and fucked up.  Allie essentially brainwashes his family into thinking America doesn’t even exist anymore and does whatever he must to keep his own vision afloat.  He’s too proud to ask for help and too crazy to see that he’s hurting the people that love him.

If you’ve ever wanted to see Harrison Ford in a different kind of role then here you go.  I never thought he was the best actor.  I mean he’s cool as hell but he always plays himself more or less in every role.  Here he gets to stretch out as an eccentric and brilliant but deeply flawed man.  His rantings and philosophies on life are stimulating and extreme.  Ford channels that overflowing anger to be the highlight of the movie.  Actually he’s too over the top for you to take the character very seriously but he’s a lot of fun to watch nonetheless.

Unfortunately the film as a whole isn’t great but the characters and plot are really intriguing.  It feels very bookish (which for me is almost always not a good thing) and that makes sense considering it’s based on one.  (By “bookish” generally what I mean is there are ideas that sounded good on paper but don’t work out so well on screen) This probably works much better in that medium where there’s more leeway to imagine Allie’s twisted reality.

With some minor tweaking, the right director and right cast this could’ve been a masterpiece.  But you know, I still recommend it.  The story is different and Allie’s phobia laden world view is thought provoking, even if it’s totally fucked in my opinion.

One last thing, I gotta say I love this fuckin’ poster with an uncomfortably close shot of Ford’s face where he looks disheveled and wearing an extremely suspicious and offbeat expression.  The poster is like Allie, uncompromising.