The Mosquito Coast (1986) on Netflix
PG19861h 57mAdventureDramaThriller
Allie Fox, an inventor tired of American consumerism, moves his family from New England to the Central American jungle and buys a village to build a utopia. A missionary opposes him.
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- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.6/1034,014 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes78%
Trailer
Plot summary
Allie Fox is an inventor with nine patents and six more pending, disillusioned with what America has become and convinced a nuclear war is coming. He sells the family home in New England and takes his wife and their four children, Charlie, Jerry, April and Clover, to Central America. Traveling by barge, the family encounters the missionary Reverend Spellgood. In Belize City, Allie buys Jeronimo, a village in the rainforest, from a drunken German, and the boatman Mr. Haddy takes them upriver. Allie sets about rebuilding the settlement, and the locals take to the family. Spellgood arrives to convert the villagers, and he and Allie denounce each other, the missionary calling Allie a communist and Allie calling him a zealot. Allie begins building a giant ice machine, Fat Boy, to supply the town with ice.
Cast
- Alice Heffernan-Sneedas Mrs. Polski (as Alice Sneed)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Mosquito Coast (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Jerome Hellman bought the rights to Theroux's novel as soon as it was published and Weir committed to filming it; Jack Nicholson was originally offered the lead role, but backed out over salary disputes.
- During the production of Witness, Weir discussed The Mosquito Coast with Ford, who became interested in the role of Allie Fox, though Ford's agent was less enthusiastic about the idea.
- The film contains the last feature film role of Butterfly McQueen, who had a prominent role in Gone with the Wind. She plays a lapsed churchgoer, and in real life was a vocal atheist.
- With a production budget of $25 million, the film made a little over $14 million in North America. Ford defended it in a 1992 interview: "It's the only film I have done that hasn't made its money back. I'm still glad I did it."
- Weir and Ford famously missed the Academy Awards ceremony for which they had both been nominated for Witness, a film that won two Oscars, for Best Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
