The Mosquito Coast

1986 Action/Adventure

Harrison Ford delivers one of his most-acclaimed performances in Peter Weir's adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel (scripted by Paul Schrader). Ford plays Allie Fox, an inventor embittered by the blighted landscape of the contemporary United States. As he tells his oldest son, Charlie (River Phoenix), "Look around you. It's a toilet." He moves his wife (Helen Mirren) and kids -- Charlie, Jerry (Jadrien Steele), April (Hilary Gordon), and Clover (Rebecca Gordon) -- to the rain forests of Central America, where he plans to create a new civilization starting with his own nuclear family. Allie's family compliantly goes along with his scheme to build a free society, but slowly notices that his obsession has turned him into a tyrannical fascist. Rather than create a utopia, Allie's driving egomania demands total subservience from his downtrodden brood. more..

Director: Peter Weir

Starring: Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, River Phoenix, Andre Gregory

 16 Reviews  2 Awards

Reviews

  • A courageous and serious film that explores the limits of the mythic American virtues of persistence, inventiveness, and rugged individualism.

    - TV Guide

    27 April 2013

  • Weir's orchestrated The Mosquito Coast's action to match Fox's progressive mental state, from rage to explosion to squalls and finally to hurricane velocity; however, the film leaves us not with an apotheosis, but exhaustion.

    Sheila Benson - Los Angeles Times

    27 April 2013

  • It is hard to believe that a film as beautiful as The Mosquito Coast can also be so bleak, but therein lies its power and undoing.

    - Variety

    27 April 2013

  • The Mosquito Coast is the only movie you'll see this season that has too much ambition for its own good - its subject, really, is nothing less than the American experience.

    - The Washington Post

    27 April 2013

  • As a persona of epic polarities, animates this muddled, metaphysical journey into the jungle.

    Rita Kempley - The Washington Post

    27 April 2013

Awards

  • Best Original Score - Motion Picture

    Golden Globes (1987)

     

  • Best Young Male Superstar in Motion Pictures

    Young Artist Awards (1988)

Lists

No lists

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