We didn't come this far as human beings just to go backwards. Why reinvent the wheel? That's pretty much what Father aka Allie Fox (Harrison Ford) was doing.
Allie could be labeled eccentric, enigmatic, or even kooky--if he were single with no kids. Attach a wife and kids to him and then he becomes an unfit husband and father.
Allie took his family from the cozy lands of the United States into the jungles of some South American country in order to find a utopia that he would build. He was an inventor, and a darn good one. He was also arrogant. So arrogant in fact that he repeatedly put his family in harms way by believing in his own ability to create. He was an arrogant atheist with a God complex. He believed that the God he didn't believe in created a flawed and imperfect world and he was going to perfect it with his team... meaning his family: Mother (Helen Mirren), Charlie (River Phoenix), Jerry (Jadrien Steele) and the twins.
It was hard to watch "Mosquito Coast" without wishing for Allie's demise. He wasn't evil by any means, but his arrogant and hair-brained schemes had the same look and feel of an evil dictator's. And maybe shunning help in the pursuit of perfection is just that: arrogant and hair-brained.
Allie could be labeled eccentric, enigmatic, or even kooky--if he were single with no kids. Attach a wife and kids to him and then he becomes an unfit husband and father.
Allie took his family from the cozy lands of the United States into the jungles of some South American country in order to find a utopia that he would build. He was an inventor, and a darn good one. He was also arrogant. So arrogant in fact that he repeatedly put his family in harms way by believing in his own ability to create. He was an arrogant atheist with a God complex. He believed that the God he didn't believe in created a flawed and imperfect world and he was going to perfect it with his team... meaning his family: Mother (Helen Mirren), Charlie (River Phoenix), Jerry (Jadrien Steele) and the twins.
It was hard to watch "Mosquito Coast" without wishing for Allie's demise. He wasn't evil by any means, but his arrogant and hair-brained schemes had the same look and feel of an evil dictator's. And maybe shunning help in the pursuit of perfection is just that: arrogant and hair-brained.