The Mosquito Coast
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Movie Reviews of The Mosquito Coast
Movie Review: The story of a man too smart for everybodys good.
Summary: 4 Stars
Brilliant storytelling (almost fable-like original novel by Paul Theroux) highlights this underrated film of a man's quest for -God only knows.Idealistic inventor Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) packs up the wife and kids, and heads off to the deep part of the Central American jungle, with an ice-making machine, no less.
A man of unquenchable thirst, Fox's obsessive, driving quest destroys not only himself and his family, but all that surrounds him as well. There can be no satisfaction in his world, no accomplishment, no salvation.
Saul Zaentz (English Patient) produced and Peter Weir (Truman Show) directed, this Paul Schrader script. That's a good enough reason to suggest right here, but Ford is brilliant as he turns from idealistic inventor to self-described deity.
Beautiful jungle landscapes only add to the experience.
But the moral to the story is?
Movie Review: An outstanding film!
Summary: 4 Stars
The first time I saw this movie (about 15 years ago) I really liked Ford's perfomance as Allie Fox, an excentric american inventor who is fed up about of a lot of things in America and decides to move along with his family to Honduras (to the Mosquito Coast)to improve his way of living. By then I really liked Helen Mirren and late River Phoenix as his wife and son.A couple of months ago I got the chance to red Paul Theroux's novel and I was really surprised abouth Fox's character and I realised than Harrison Ford is Allie Fox Himself! An outsatnding direction by one of my favourite directors, great Peter Weir (Gallipolli, The year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Fearless)who is very attracted in developing conflicts between human beings and Mosqito Coast isn't an exception.I highly recommend this DVD (great quality, and really improved from the VHS)
Movie Review: memorable
Summary: 4 Stars
Don't ask me why, but I remember one thing in particular about this film, the fading of the shirt Ford wears virtually every day, a fading only prolonged, repeated exposure to the sun can produced. Usually, when someone does a detail like that right (something a Steven Spielberg most assuredly does not; think of Harrison Ford running away from the natives in one of the first scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a film that gets worse with every viewing, and the clouds of dust coming off his jacket ... Steven: we got it; less would have been more) the rest of the film always follows, and this one does. I remember that too.Movie Review: The troubled inventor ...
Summary: 3 Stars
The movie is based on a book by the prodigal Paul Theroux. It is centered around Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) and his family's migration to the remote and enigmatic Mosquito Coast. The tropical jungle gives Allie a virgin ground for creating a superior civilization. Surprisingly, he thinks ice is synonymous with civilization and builds a monstrous machine that generates ice, air-conditioning and condensed water. The ice-making machine is called Fat Boy. It is a giant manifestation of his creative genius. He hikes (lugging ice blocks) to remote Indian villages to proudly show them ice that he created. Not surprisingly, the Fat Boy initiates the sudden collapse of his remote & superior civilization. Thereafter, he gets madly obsessed to create another (more elemental) civilization on an unmapped place and exposes his family to great peril, hardships and hunger. He nurtures a strong dislike towards the missionaries operating in rural-rural Mosquito. His dislike towards them and the disappointment of failing in multiple attempts to create & sustain a civilization leads him to burning down a mission city. The reprisal is strong and he is shot & fatally wounded.
If you've read the book, then (subconsciously) you'll be trying to relate every scene to the book and will always be disappointed because the movie seems to move very fast. At times it'll be digressing from the book's story line and other times, it'll be an exact enactment. The mental picture painted by the mind while reading the book is very vivid & colorful compared to the scenes depicted in the movie.
I think movies based on wonderful & compelling books/novels should spend some time building the initial story (as in the book). In the movie, it would have helped if the director would have spent some more time showing Allie, his family members, his creational genius and his plot to migrate to the Mosquito Coast. The director should not assume that everyone watching the movie has read the book. That is the best approach for a mixed audience (folks who have read the book & folks who have not).
Nonetheless, the movie is watchable. Harrison Ford (as Allie) shines and the dramatic Mosquito Coast scenery & rugged jungle beauty is alluring and well shot. I particularly liked the shots of the tiny boat coasting upstream amidst thick jungle whilst being bathed in tropical sunshine. Fat Boy's manifestation is very impressive. The movie will leave you with a very strong afterthought about the manmade creations. To be honest, we are in very many ways (despite the luxuries) a forsaken captive of our own creation.
The movie's background score is lackluster. A good music score would have complemented the jungle backdrop.
Movie Review: No Buzz for the Mosquito Coast.
Summary: 3 Stars
After reading several reviews, the consensus is that the movie MOSQUITO COAST strays far from its original source..the book from which it is based upon. It seems those who are familiar with the book hate this movie and there is a hate it or love it attitude towards this film. With that aside,Harrison Ford gives one of his best performances as Allie Fox, a crackpot inventor disillusioned with society, particularly the American landscape. He moves his family to the rain forests of Central America to create a utopia so he can live in peace and build a ice-making machine (which he thinks would be the central core of his vision). Things are fine in the beginning, but Allie becomes obsessive and egotistical, and his family begins to become disillusioned by the whole concept. In this viewers opinion the movie is great for the first three quarters as Allie's ideas and dreams come to fruitition. He seems a little unstable, but his dreams are coming together. Then,the final phase of the film echoes the sentiments from an episode of the Twilight Zone called "Elegy" where in the final scene of this classic story, a character (an android named Mr. Wickwire) says "...because you are men, and you are here. And where there are men, there can be no peace!"; the results are almost identical in both stories. This is where the movie falls and where it will turn off most audiences. This is a tour de force acting vehicle for Ford, but the story, plot and somewhat downbeat ending will alienate audiences especially those who are used to seeing Ford playing strong and heroic characters. Good all around support cast with Hellen Mirren (CALIGULA),and the late great River Pheonix (STAND BY ME) who plays Charlie, Allie's(Ford) son. (Pheonix went on to play a young Indiana Jones in a flashback sequence in THE LAST CRUSADE; perhaps because of this role of playing the son of Ford's character.)