Mather - Mosquito Coast

Mosquito Coast is a film based on the novel The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux. It stars Harrison Ford as Allie Fox, an inventor that is plagued by American consumerism. Like many of Ford's roles, Fox can be described "heroic, likable and self-reliant" (Pfieffer 155). From the opening scene, it can be seen that Allie Fox is absolutely brilliant, if a bit fanatical, and maybe a bit crazy. He laments to his son about how Americans "buy junk, sell junk and eat junk." He goes on to conclude that America is heading towards nuclear war as a result of their corruption and greed. Allie then decides to quit his job, abandon his inventions, and move his family to Belize, to start a new life. Through his genius, and the hard work of his family and his new villagers, Fox creates an elaborate home out of scrapmetal. He then creates a large scale version of an invention he had made in the opening scene of the movie, and creates air conditioning for his new home. He also provides ice for the villagers, which proves to be a wanted commodity in the jungle. All throughout the film, the viewer can watch Fox slowly but surely descend into madness

His first sign of his descent into fanatacism is seen when he refuses to buy a piece of equipment in the hardware store because it was made in China, and not the United States. Soon after, he makes a realization upon seeing a group of immigrant workers that he needs to live simply like they do, that it is the proper way for humans to live, and not in a greed and consumerist filled world. His second true showing of fanaticism occurs after he constructs a giant ice machine in the middle of the jungle. After becoming a local hero for providing a comfort such as ice to the local people, Fox decides he needs to give the gift of ice to people who have never seen it before. He becomes so infatuated with this concept that he makes his family carry a giant block of ice through the hot and humid jungle. It isn't apparent to him that they are suffering, as he is fixated on bringing the ice to the needy. Yet by the time they reached the village, the ice had melted and Fox had nothing to give the angry villagers. He was blind to any sort of reason, that it would be impossible to trek any large amount of ice that far through the jungle and not have it melt. The third incident that shows Fox's fanaticism was when he burned down the pastor's church and village at the end of the movie. His reasoning was that he saw barbed wire and claimed that it was a Christian concentration camp. Fox, who is very eager to have his family get back on the boat to leave, draws attention to himself and gets shot by the Reverend Spellgood. In the end, Fox's fanaticism gets him killed.

Tom Mather