The Mosquito Coast (1986)

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General		Extras
Category	Adventure	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1986
Running Time	113:49
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Peter Weir
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Harrison Ford Helen Mirren River Phoenix Conrad Roberts Andre Gregory Martha Plimpton
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$14.95	Music	Maurice Jarre

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

        "We eat when we're not hungry, drink when we're not thirsty. We buy what we don't need and throw away everything that's useful. Why sell a man what he wants? Sell him what he doesn't need. Pretend he's got eight legs and two stomachs and money to burn.
It's wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong."

    Welcome to the world of Allie Fox (Harrison Ford). Allie is described by his loving son Charlie (River Phoenix) as an inventor and a genius, with 9 patents to his name - although of these 6 are still pending. Allie appears at first glance to be a normal loving husband and father to his four children. Sure, like many inventors, he is an eccentric, often forgetful of his day-to-day responsibilities and the needs of those around him and completely absorbed by the pursuit of his own ideas. But we very soon learn that there is indeed much more lurking beneath the surface of this man than just an inventor who is a little eccentric. We learn that Allie is also a paranoid delusional and only sees around him the bad in an ailing America. He sees only a decrepit society in which America has turned into "a dope-taking, door-locking, ulcerated danger-zone of rabid scavengers, criminal millionaires and moral sneaks."  He proudly tells his son that he is "the last man" and that he thinks and dreams about leaving America every day.

    And so he does. One day Allie packs up his family and heads to the (fictitious) Mosquito Coast, in Central America, there to form a new wholly self-sufficient lifestyle with his loving family. Allie buys - sight unseen and without so much as even consultation with his wife (Helen Mirren) - a small town called "Geronimo". And so together the family are swept away, finding themselves escorted upriver on their next big adventure together to discover their new home. When they arrive, all and sundry are completely dismayed to discover Geronimo contains nothing but a small clutch of deserted, dilapidated, unliveable shacks in an overgrown, no-mans land patch of the jungle. All are dismayed, that is, except Allie, who immediately exclaims that "it's perfect", refusing to see the current hopelessness of the situation and instead only seeing the dream of what it could become. Indeed, through Allie's determination and ingenuity and the sheer hard work of all around, they do reclaim the land and build their own little piece of paradise. All seems to be going well in Geronimo, until local missionary Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory) arrives unannounced to spread the word of God.

    The Mosquito Coast is based on the novel by Paul Theroux. The film is consummately crafted in the capable hands of Australian director Peter Weir, teaming up again with compatriot talented cinematographer John Seale to create another truly beautiful film. (The pair had worked together for the first time the year before on Witness (also with Harrison Ford) and would a few years later collaborate to create the masterpiece Dead Poets Society).

    The Mosquito Coast sees Harrison Ford taking on a very brave and challenging role at that stage in his career, worlds away from what his newly won Star Wars and Indiana Jones fans might have expected. The role is a demanding one and whilst we can see that the character of Allie Fox is at first motivated by love for his family, he is also a paranoid and obsessive and, in the end, not entirely likeable person. This was therefore a role that bravely defied Harrison Ford's hero stereotyping and so risked alienating many of the fans he had won to this point of his career. As it turned out though, Harrison Ford's performance in this film simply confirmed the depth of his talent as an actor and this film sees him deliver what I would argue is perhaps the best performance of his entire career. It is indeed a pity that this film was completely overlooked for the 1986 Academy Awards. Ford is complemented in this film by a solid supporting cast, including the above-mentioned Helen Mirren, River Phoenix (particularly good) and Conrad Roberts, who all make their mark by making their characters believable, despite the absurdity of the situations in which they all ultimately find themselves. The story itself is told mostly through the perspective of Charlie (River Phoenix), with some voice-over narrations that for once actually seem to work very well in this movie.

    The Mosquito Coast is a moralistic tale; a film about the obsessiveness of one man's dream and the questioning of just how far a man should go to attain that dream. The plot is unpredictable and will keep you guessing with its many twists and turns. It is a film that is well paced and keeps relentlessly building up to its ultimate and inevitable conclusion. By the end you will feel a part of this family and the experiences they have gone through. It is a great piece of entertainment.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, which is comparable to the original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1.

    Luminance is much better than I feared it might have been for a bare-bones DVD release of such a lesser-known 1986 film, and Warners have done a great job with the transfer. (We can be thankful this film warranted a release in Region 2, and so it was deemed economic to create a separate PAL transfer for a dual-zoned Region 2/Region 4 DVD.)  Sharpness is quite outstanding given the age of the source print, with most scenes displaying ample foreground and background resolution and only minimal visible film grain, giving a generally crisp image. There is a sufficient but not exemplary amount of shadow detail on offer in the transfer, and this is an important point, as there are some important plot pieces taking place at night or in dimply lit scenes in this film, with the level of contrast in these scenes being sufficient but wanting to reveal a bit more detail.

    Colour saturation is excellent and this is displayed to best effect in many of Peter Weir's wide shots of the jungle, with the transfer capturing well the bold colour contrasts of the lush greens of the jungle foliage, the azures of the sky and the deep blues of the river water. The transfer also delivers healthy black levels that are (for the most part) devoid of low level noise. Unfortunately though, the skin tones are a bit of a problem in this transfer, being tainted by an overly reddish tinge.

   No MPEG artefacts or material film-to-video artefacts are noted (some minor edge enhancement aside) - there is no aliasing issues or even telecine wobble or Gibb effect around the credits of any note. Film artefacts are there, as would be expected for a 1986 print, in the form of various minor flecks and the odd negative scratch, but overall this print has been maintained in very good shape.

   There are two English subtitle streams on the disc. I sampled the first of these (the plain English stream) and found the font to be clear, well differentiated from the background and relatively accurate. I can't say much for the timing of the subtitles however, as I found many lines being delivered on screen at times either too early (before the spoken word), or at other times a beat too late (behind the spoken word), which can become distracting.

   The film is contained on a single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Dialogue quality is clear and strong throughout, with no muffled lines and only one isolated incident noted where the dialogue delivery is lost in the height of the action (Harrison Ford shouting over a raging storm), but I suspect even this may have been a deliberate artistic decision in order to heighten the drama of the scene.

    Audio sync wanders around a bit and whilst remaining within an acceptable tolerance range, I found the dialogue delivery to be at times half a beat behind the visual and then at other times just ahead.

    The music score is Maurice Jarre. It is quite distinctive, evocative and complementary to the on-screen action when used. The original theatrical stereo audio is a bit flat, with dynamic range seeming a bit constrained, hampering some of the audio impact. But still, the music itself is captured in the transfer with some clarity and the score swells well across the front soundstage and then spills over into the rears to good effect.

    This is indeed a 2.0 Surround mix and apart from helping to embellish the musical score, the rear channels are employed well to deliver numerous sound effects and other ambience, such as bird noises, jungle sounds, the wind and the waves. This is not a constant/immersive surround mix by any means, but it is an effective and subtle mix nonetheless.

    The subwoofer doesn't get a great deal to do and only just stays warm at best. The scene involving the explosion of "Fat Boy" at 74:15 for example lacks any real impact.   

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    In comparison to the Region 1 version of the DVD, the Region 4 disc misses out on:

• Theatrical trailer,
• French Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround audio track,
• French subtitles, and
• Pan and scan version of the film.

    In comparison to the Region 4 version, Region 1 misses out on:

• separate English for the Hearing Impaired subtitle stream (ie. separate to the plain English subtitle stream).

    If you won't need the French language audio track or subtitles, then the only thing we miss out on here is the theatrical trailer, but in return we gain the superior resolution of a separate PAL transfer, so I would call this one even and recommend the Region 4 to you.

    The DVD video transfer is well handled, offering great resolution and colour saturation.

    The DVD's audio transfer is perfectly sufficient, although the original stereo surround mix is a bit flat.

    There are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall