The Mosquito Coast is a 1986 American drama film directed by Peter Weir and starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, Andre Gregory, and River Phoenix.

The film tells the story of a family that leaves the United States and tries to find a happier and simpler life in the jungles of Central America.

After Allie and his eldest son Charlie acquire the components at a local dump, he finishes assembling his latest creation, an ice machine known as Fat Boy.

Mr. Polski, an asparagus farm owner, has hired Allie to create a cooling system for his barn to keep his crop from spoiling.

As he drives past the fields, a dejected Allie comments on immigrants picking asparagus, and says that where they come from, they might think of ice as a luxury.

The next morning, Allie throws a party for the immigrant workers before telling his family that they're leaving the United States.

On board a Panamanian barge, the family meets Reverend Spellgood, a missionary, his wife, and their daughter, Emily.

When Allie returns to Jeronimo, he learns that Spellgood has left with much of the populace, scaring them with stories of God's biblical destruction.

Set on freezing them to death, Allie bunks the rebels up in the giant ice machine, tells Charlie to lock its only other exit, and activates it.

Allie, refusing to believe his dream has been shattered, announces that they have all they need on the beach and tells them that the United States has been destroyed in a nuclear war.

Settling on the beach in a houseboat he has built, and refusing assistance from Mr. Haddy, Allie believes that the family has accomplished building a utopia.

Coming ashore when the family stumbles across Spellgood's compound, Allie sees barbed wire and mutters that the settlement is a Christian concentration camp.

With Ford attached to the project, financial backing and distribution for the film was easier to find (ultimately from Saul Zaentz and Warner Bros.).

Weir and Ford famously missed the Academy Awards ceremony for which they had both been nominated for Witness,[2] which won two Oscars, for Best Screenplay and Best Film Editing.

The site's critics consensus reads: "Harrison Ford capably tackles a tough, unlikable role, producing a fascinating and strange character study.

"[11] In her review for the Washington Post, Rita Kempley wrote: Sooner or later a man of invention will pollute paradise, a grand contradiction that gives Mosquito its bite and Ford inspiration for his most complex portrayal to date.

[12] Sheila Benson of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "He's orchestrated The Mosquito Coast's action to match Fox's progressive mental state, from rage to explosion to squalls and finally to hurricane velocity; however, the film leaves us not with an apotheosis, but exhaustion.

"[13] In his review for the Globe and Mail, Jay Scott wrote, "The Mosquito Coast is a work of consummate craftsmanship and it's spectacularly acted, down to the smallest roles ... but its field of vision is as narrow and eventually as claustrophobic as Allie's.