Harrison Ford pretty much ruled the cinema screens from the late 70’s to the eighties. Starting from hugely popular Star Wars series, he went on to act in the iconic Apocalypse Now, in Blade Runner, which is arguably the best sci-fi movie ever and topped it off with first two instalments of Indiana Jones movies – all this in just six years.

After highly acclaimed Witness (1985), he went on to doing The Mosquito Coast, one of his less memorable films. It’s a story about a man who grows disgusted with the modern society, sells his house and leaves the country to jungle to start a new civilisation, better than the one he abandoned.

Paradoxically Ford both keeps this movie standing with his top notch act as an disgruntled and disillusioned hermit, but it’s also his performance as a very unlikeable and single-minded character who puts his whole family at risk that makes this movie a bit laborious to watch. To me the movie could’ve carried better with just internal conflicts inside the family piling up, but very surprisingly the biggest conflicts come external sources that feel somewhat cartoony in the form of local preacher and a bunch of thugs.

River Phoenix plays Fox’s son and also acts as the narrative voice in the movie. Phoenix and Ford would reunite to work the last time in 1989 when River plays the young Indy in the opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

80s-o-meter: 60%

Total: 55%