Is Harrison Ford’s best acting performance in Star Wars or Indiana Jones? Working Girl, you say? “Wrong!” says John McLaughlin. The answer, says Mike, is The Mosquito Coast, a 1986 movie about an obsessed inventor who tries to build a perfect world in the jungle with an ice machine. It’s not a comedy. It’s one of the darkest movies you’ll ever see, because it shows what happens when we try to build a world without God in the equation.
Fed up with the United States, Allie Fox (Ford) takes his family and five children (Helen Mirren as his wife and River Phoenix as their older son) to Nicaragua, where he thinks he will create a perfect civilization in the heart of darkness. “Everything we need is here,” he says. “Right here. We can live simply: gardening, beach combing. I’m a changed man, mother. No more chemicals or poisons. If what you want isn’t washed up on this beach, you probably don’t need it.” He builds his family a house that is better than Tarzan’s, leads the natives in making a gigantic ice-making machine that will improve their quality of life, and mocks the missioner who believes in God. Will Fox’s brilliance bring his family and neighbors together, or will his arrogance tear them apart?
Allie Fox is Thoreau, Fitzcarraldo, and Faust rolled into one. No wonder. The movie is from a novel by Paul Theroux (Jungle Lovers), was written by Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver), and directed by Peter Weir (Master and Commander). Ford is so deep into his character that we want him to succeed, even as we, along with everyone else, grow to fear him and root for his family to get away before his world crushes all of them. If you like the novels of Graham Greene and movies like At Play in the Fields of the Lord, let me tell you, you will find much to excite you and to think about in The Mosquito Coast.
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The Mosquito Coast! Whoa, blast from the past. I have a very clear recollection of seeing that movie in the theatre when it came out. It left a huge impression on me at the time, but I have to tell you, I have not thought about this movie very much since then.
Are you secretly working for Netflix?
Just kidding!!! Thanks for all the good recommendations.
LOL, Fran. Guess what? Just got a notice from Netflix that they’re raising their prices so I changed my subscription from getting two DVDs at a time to one at a time ($9.99). What I like about Netflix is that they have just about every movie and TV show ever made and their site is so easy to navigate and fun to read. It’s almost like having Rose Pacatte or Roger Ebert in your living room.
I got the same one…. It *is* like having Rose or Roger however, and that is a big plus. I got to meet Rose last year, is she ever a treasure in so many, many ways!
So yes, I will stay with Netflix too – it is just the best source for the time being.
My kids were Harrison Ford fans back in those days so we rented the video from a now defunct video store (thanks probably to Mike’s always pushing Netflix). Anyway, my memory of the film was that the photography was great, brilliant colors, but by the end my kids were rooting against their hero, i.e., they wanted the family to dump Harrison Ford. It was a dark movie – not sure I would recommend it to anyone today.
Mike, by the way, my que at Netflix is full thanks to you!
Bob, I look forward to your comments every day. Yeah, it is dark, and so unusual for Harrison Ford. My boys were around 14 and 12 when we saw it and all of us rooted for River Phoenix and the other kids to get away. We were into it. I like movies about “civilized” people trying to “civilize’ the jungle and getting their commenuppance. My favorite movie hero of all time, of course, is Tarzan (Johnny Wuismueller). No one could tame him except Jane.
Mike,
Tarzan and Jane – that brings back lots of memories.
Our family’s favorite movie hero, of course, has to be Indiana Jones. Who else??
I won’t argue with that, Bob!
Mike,
I remember having a palpable sense of dread when I watched The Mosquito Coast. Whenever people work so hard to disnegage from the world and build their own little utopias, well, watch the movie.
I’m behind on my reading here but wondering if you’ve seen and commented on Midnight in Paris yet?
Nope, not yet. Worth it?
Definitely!
I never met a Harrison Ford movie I didn’t like!
Right on!