Mosquito Coast
“Allie Fox is insane!”
Allie Fox is insane. He is also a genius, and a driven one. But he is insane. He has off kilter rants about the government, about how America is falling apart, and he shares such rants with not only his family, but with hardware store employees and Central American indigenous peoples. It seems to him that he has all the answers, but no one wants to listen to him. His children and family unfortunately, have no choice. They accept his machinations about the world and dogmatically follow him to all ends of the earth, far far far past the point of reason.
And so it goes; Allie Fox is a brilliant inventor, but because of his stubbornness and, when the film begins, only smoldering insanity, is relegated to working as an engineer on a farm. He has an assignment to create an efficient way to do something on the farm that I can not remember. No matter, Allie Fox does not remember either, because instead of pursuing his assigned task, he creates a machine that makes ice out of fire. A truly astounding feat, one that in reality would merit quite a sum of money for the trademark.
But here, in Peter Weir’s 1986 film “The Mosquito Coast,” his employer chastises him for not completing his assigned task. Fox, well portrayed by Harrison Ford, is wounded, but he rebounds with an even more fantastic idea; he uproots his family and takes them to the fictional Central American country of Mosquodia (beautifully realized in Costa Rica), where he has bought land and will literally build a new society with himself and his ice machine as ruler and conqueror.
Any review of this film would be remiss to not mention Werner Herzog’s superior film “Fitzcarraldo,” starring Klaus Kinski, about a man who plans to build a giant opera house in the middle of the Amazonian Jungle. The similarities are striking and surely the filmmaker’s involved in “The Mosquito Coast” were aware of Herzog’s masterpiece, made only four years earlier. “Fitzcarraldo” is also about unbelievable madness and a driven man, but its acting, its sheer madness as a film, and its ultimately satisfying conclusion, puts it far ahead of “The Mosquito Coast.” Because “Fitzcarraldo” is given a mate who is just as odd as him we believe it. And because everything in the making of the film is so authentic, they really heave a 340 ton steam boat over land into a river, we are riveted. When, in the film’s opening sequence, Fitzcarraldo shows up in a small riverboat after a twelve hundred mile journey to hear Caruso sing, the tone of the film is set.
It’s not surprising that the screenplay to “The Mosquito Coast” while adapted from a novel, was written by Paul Schrader. Schrader, who wrote “Taxi Driver,” has mined the territory of the driven loner before. The only problem here is that Allie Fox, the main character in “The Mosquito Coast,” isn’t quite a loner; he has a family that he drags along with him. A rather large one in fact. He has a wife, played by Helen Miren, and four children, including Charlie, played by the late River Phoenix, who serves as the film’s narrator (another penchant of Schrader’s).
This film is well done in many ways. The photography, acting, direction, and editing are top notch, but this is not a great film, only a curious and good one. What keeps it from greatness is the story. It is too one dimensional, and in this it mirrors Allie. The film never stops to consider, and it never allows his family to consider, until it is much too late. With “Fitzcarraldo” it wasn’t about waiting for anyone to realize Fitz’s madness; in that film the whole film itself was mad!
Here, Allie’s wife, more than ably played by Helen Mirren, is maddening. Why doesn’t she speak up! Her character’s most interesting moment is when Allie has uprooted the family from their farm home. Far from giving them a day to pack, the move is immediate. In a flurry of excitement the family is being whisked away. Mother Fox (her character’s only name, a nice touch in the writing, Allie calls her only “Mother”) is the last to leave. She pauses for a moment, looks at the home they have built and the dishes in the sink. She is worried, then she smiles and leaves. There could have been something to this character. It’s suggested that this is why she loves the unlovable Allie, for his brilliance and his spontaneity, his self assurance, and for the possibilities that he offers, but I need to know more about this, because for the rest of the film he is a complete jackass. And an unreasonable one. At first he begins to build his society, and a well done montage shows him at his best (which is still pretty mad) building his society with his own two hands while spouting out his rhetoric to non-english speaking natives who call him “Father.” But we know this can not last. He’s too mad, and his family is too blind.
Story: B
So straight of an arrow. Fox is obsessed. Too one-dimensional. However, mad-inventor genius invents a machine that makes ice out of fire and drags his family to Costa Rica to create a new society? Great.
Acting: A
Miren, Ford, and Phoenix all are great
Visuals: B+
Shot in Costa Rica, beautiful but unobtrusive.
Originality/Innovation: B
The story is something wild.
Enjoyability Grade: B
Overall Grade: B
Not enough reason for these things to happen. A somewhat predictable and unsatisfying resolution.
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