Mosquito Coast

This is an odd duck in the Harrison Ford canon. Instead of his usual decent everyman hero, here he plays a deranged libertarian inventor who becomes increasingly unmoored from reality – endangered a young River Phoenix and the rest of his hapless family in the process.

Brian and Hemal had mixed feelings about ‘The Mosquito Coast’. It’s a movie with a strong point of view. And it’s some of the best acting we’ve seen from Harrison Ford; he really gets inside this largely unlikable character. In fact, it’s the exceedingly rare movie where you forget you’re watching Harrison Ford. But it’s also dark and claustrophobic – a compelling movie, but not a fun watch.

We did think the movie had a surprisingly sophisticated stance on some of the issues it touches on, from colonialism to racism to unhealthy family power dynamics. Rather than loudly letting you know that the characters in thrall to these pathologies are bad people, it trusts the audience to spend time with a character and draw their own conclusions.