You Ain't Seen Me, Right? - The Mosquito Coast (1986)

Sick of evenings spent queueing in supermarkets? Quit your job and shop during the day instead. That way you'll also be able to watch obscure movies recommended by our regular feature, You Ain't Seen Me, Right? - it'll make you a better person, and less of a workshy dosspot.

You Ain't Seen Me, Right? is brought to you by Daniel Palmer, of Part-Time Infidel web fame. Daniel is the only known person to have won Takeshi's Castle.

The Mosquito Coast (1986)
Buy the DVD on Amazon


Considering he is the third highest grossing actor in history - behind Tom Hanks and, believe it or not, Samuel L. Jackson - Harrison Ford has had his fair share of flops, like this adaptation of Paul Theroux's novel. The Mosquito Coast came off the back of three mega-hits - Return of the Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Witness (1985) - which served to erase the taint of Ford's previous box office failure, Blade Runner (1982).

Ford plays Allie Fox, an inventor who is disillusioned with life in America. When his latest invention, a device which turns heat into ice, meets with indifference, Fox and his family set off for Central America to build ‘a superior civilisation'. Fox clashes with Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory), a charismatic missionary who brands him a false idol and a Communist, and struggles to keep his wife (Helen Mirren) and oldest son (River Phoenix) on board with his vision.

Journeyman director Peter Weir is amongst the safest pair of hands in the business, handling projects like Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) and Dead Poets Society (1989) with equal assurance. His discreet diligence allows the film's other components to flourish - Paul Schrader's screenplay charts the increasingly heated family dynamic, while John Seale's photography stunningly captures the beauty and brutality of the untamed locations.



This was not the Harrison Ford that audiences wanted to see in 1986, a time when America went to the cinema to see heroes who bolstered its flagging self-confidence in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair. Allie Fox is the antithesis of the rugged, dynamic, laconic men of action which made Ford a star. Ford tests himself as an actor in his portrayal of the sanctimonious, querulous martinet who drives himself and his family to extreme lengths in pursuit of his ideals.

Mirren is typically brilliant as the long-suffering wife who indulges Allie's worst excesses, detailing her gradual unravelling without recourse to histrionics. Phoenix was a prodigy whose demise robbed us of untold great work. No doubt drawing on his own peripatetic upbringing, Phoenix's nervous energy and world-weary narration deftly articulate Charlie's arc. Fellow up-and-comers Jadrien Steele and Martha Plimpton impress as Fox's youngest son and Spellgood's errant daughter, while Gregory embodies the cynical, exploitative face of the Church with gusto.

The Mosquito Coast is an altogether darker variation on The Swiss Family Robinson in which the family willingly shipwrecks itself. Allie idealises the ‘pure people' to such a degree that when reality invades his paradise he is unable to adjust. The ultimate irony is that for all his loathing of religion he is as much a zealot as the Reverend, offering the ‘friendly savages' a different form of salvation, pursuing an aggressive rationalism with its own prejudices, trying to forge order from an innately chaotic world. The Mosquito Coast is a mordant satire on the tendency to hold up the customs of less developed cultures as a panacea for consumerism's spiritual void.
Amazeballs. Right, we're off to make cats fight in the street using laser pens and bacon. More from You Ain't Seen Me, Right? next week.