gonzomysanity This American movie is ridiculous, not to mention highly politically incorrect and borderline offensive. The family move from picket-fence America to La Mosquita, Honduras; the country not being mentioned at all in the film. The director has chosen to present the view that the people of Central are almost entirely Garifuna - with quite strangely Jamaican accents. The reality is that the population of Mayan people outnumber the Garifuna by far, especially inland. The fact that the movie was filmed in Belize which has a different kind of landscape adds to the director's fantasy of a 'wild jungle territory' without portraying any accuracy. Also, everyone seems to speak English, with an American accent.Harrison Ford's character plays an egotistical American man who doesn't seem to bat an eyelid at the startling white supremacy subtly normalised in the film. The family quickly buy up a small town and set the natives to work for them. True, Ford does work alongside the indigenous peoples but noticeably not as hard and seems to boss everyone around an awful lot. The son played by River Phoenix quotes: "He called this notch in the jungle a 'superior civilisation' just as America might have been."The children make this film bearable as they play together and develop some morals and integrity. The beautiful Belizean landscape also makes for an interesting watch. Ultimately, a typical example of how some people think they are superior to others, normalise it and not even notice they are doing it.

Jackson Booth-Millard From director Peter Weir (Gallipoli, Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show), I expected this to be some kind of Cast Away or Swiss Family Robinson style desert island film, I watched it because of the three good leading stars. Basically Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) is the eccentric and arrogant inventor who doesn't do things by the book, and his troubled genius, intense moods and incredible drive have given the idea, apparently on a sudden whim, to make a new somewhere else. So with his family, Mother Fox (Dame Helen Mirren), teenage son Charlie (River Phoenix), younger son Jerry (Jadrien Steele) and young twins April and clover (twins Hilary and Rebecca Gordon), they travel to the jungles of Central America to live their new life. Over time, in the middle of the jungle, a new factory is built, and the experiment to create large ice cubes to sell to the local people and all over is successful. There are problems with their new environment though, not just from the inquisitive and sometimes vicious tribes people, from Christian missionary Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory) who has a strong hatred for Communists, but mostly from Allie. His attitude, strong attitudes and short fuse make him a bad father, a poor husband, and more than anything a hateful control freak and he wants things done his way and has almost no care for anything or anyone else. It comes to the point when Allie really goes over the edge and too far in his self brewing madness, he destroys the ice factory because of severe paranoia, and the family know that they have to leave. In the end, the only way Allie is finally put to rest and his terrible ways stopped is to be shot and paralysed, Mother upset, but the family do finally leave the jungle and the final narration by Charlie says he did die, but the family go on with hope. Also starring Conrad Roberts as Mr. Haddy, The Goonies' Martha Plimpton as Emily Spellgood and Dick O'Neill as Mr. Polski. Mirren gives a reasonable performance as the concerned and forced wife and mother of the family, and Phoenix is good seeming a little older than he actually is, but Ford is the big draw as he grips you, and even makes you uncomfortable, with his manic dark character who you can both hate and feel no sympathy for, which makes him so good, the story is alright, overall I wonder about the four stars out of five rating by the critics, but it is a watchable drama. It was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Original Score for Maurice Jarre. Good!

Rockwell_Cronenberg The Mosquito Coast was the second collaboration between Harrison Ford and Peter Weir, coming directly on the heels of their first, the superb Witness. Like his work with Mel Gibson at the beginning of the decade, Weir's teaming up with Ford allowed the director to find a muse who would not only be able to accurately portray the complex themes and emotions of the character, but also give the actor a rare chance to demonstrate his true worth as a versatile performer.Harrison Ford, as the eccentric inventor Allie Fox, is given full control here and takes on a character that no one would ever expect to see him in, or would ever really expect to see him in again. He has played the guy who is fed up before, but Allie Fox is fed up to the point of insanity. He's had it with America and in an ongoing series of Howard Beale-esque diatribes on the state of his once great country, he decides to pick up his family and move them all to the jungle, to experience life at it's most basic. At first it's a dream come true, but soon the Fox family finds that it's not America that's lost it's way, it is the whole of society and you'll encounter it wherever you go.The Mosquito Coast is more about it's themes than anything else, taking on serious explorations of the American family, the loss of innocence in a father/son relationship where the son must become a man and stand up to his father and many facets of religion and it's place in the family and society. I felt like the mother's unwillingness to stand up to Allie was a little unbelievable as his descent into madness progressed, but it was a necessary artificiality in order to bring the character study full circle and turn Allie into the kind of menace that he was constantly accusing America of being. He brings his family down much in the way that he claims America is bringing everyone else down, and it's a powerful dissection of this deeply flawed and arrogant man.Ford delivers what could well be the finest work of his career, stripping away all of his immense charm and taking on a deeply unlikeable character. This is a man who could have easily been torture to have to sit with for two hours, but Ford's charisma and always engaging screen presence is able to make him a fascinating man to study. River Phoenix does fine work as the eldest son of the family, as does Helen Mirren as the mother.Weir's absorbing direction takes a bit of a backseat here, settling for a more conventional tone and instead allowing the story and the character to take over the picture, which is a bold and appropriate move for him to make. It speaks to his intelligence as a director that he knows when to step back and let the other elements take the front seat, although there are still a few magnificently staged sequences that stand strong in Weir's roster of them.

laace2003-2 Plan and simple this movie sucks! I'm fed up with Peter Weir and his movies. Peter Weir has a problem with character development. My advice read the book and don't waste your time watching this unless you want to watch scenery, lack of character and plot development, and lack dialogue. I don't know, but the music sounded like the same music used in Witness. I can't understand how superb Harrison Ford was in Witness and how awful he was in this. His portrayal of Allie Fox was not believable and seemed forced; he was trying too hard. He came off comical. I will say that River Phoenix was great as usual, even his narrative was done to perfection. What a gifted actor he was.