The Mosquito Coast

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My father was an inventor.

A genius with anything mechanical.

Nine patents, six pending.

He dropped out of Harvard

"to get an education," he said.

I grew up with the belief...

... that the world belonged to him

and that everything he said was true.

Look around you.

How did America get this way?

Land of promise. Land of opportunity.

"Give us the wretched refuse

of your teaming shore."

Have a Coke! Watch TV.

Have a nice day.

Go on welfare.

Get free money.

Turn to crime. Crime pays in this country.

Why do they put up with it?

Why do they keep coming?

Look around you, Charlie.

This place is a toilet.

The whole damn country is turning

into a dope-taking, door-locking...

...ulcerated danger zone

of rabid scavengers...

...criminal millionaires and moral sneaks.

Nobody ever thinks

of leaving this country. I do.

I think about it every day.

I'm the last man.

I want an 8-foot length of rubber seal

with foam backing.

This country's going to the dogs.

Nobody cares.

"I just work here." That's the attitude.

Buy junk, sell junk, eat junk.

$3.99.

- Don't want it.

- That's what you asked for.

Who are you working for? The Japanese?

- If you don't want it, just say so.

- Just said so. Don't want it.

Look. Made in Japan.

I don't want my hard-earned...

...American dollars converted into yen.

I want an American length of rubber seal.

Do you work here?

All right, we'll get it someplace else.

This is not the only place in town.

Good-bye.

Or maybe I should have said, "Sayonara!"

I tell you, Charlie, I'm not goin' back

into Hatfield again.

I'm sick of dealing with people

who want things I've already rejected.

Things they see on TV.

They talk about nuclear destruction

as if it were a game show topic.

All winter, Father had been saying,

"There's going to be a war in America.

"It's coming," he said.

He was restless and talkative.

He said the signs were everywhere.

In the high prices, the bad tempers...

... the gut worry, and the stupidity

and greed of people.

Bloody crimes were being committed

in the cities...

... and the criminals were unpunished.

It wasn't going to be

an ordinary war, he said...

... but rather a war in which no side

was entirely innocent.

It's like a human's insides.

Entrails and vitals.

See, that's his digestive system.

Circulatory system.

Respiration. Lungs.

Fatty tissue. Kidneys.

The ammonia?

That's his plasma.

Got it?

But, Dad...

...what is it?

It's perfection. That's what it is.

Where is he, Mrs. Fox?

Mrs. Fox!

He's not here right now, Mr. Polski.

He had to go to Hatfield

to get a part for something.

I can see his truck, Mrs. Fox.

He's there fooling about in his workshop...

... when he should be rigging up

a cooling system in the barn!

I have asparagus rotting all over the place.

Now, you tell him to get down here

and now!

He was pretty mad.

Something about a cooling system.

Forget that. I got something much better

for him out there.

Honey, he's gonna love it.

I'm gonna knock his socks off.

I'm gonna straighten his hair.

Where you been?

About half a glass of water.

What is this?

Got a match, Doc?

You get here late, the asparagus is rotting,

and you ask me for a match?

If it wouldn't be too much trouble.

Mr. Fox.

Jerry, what's he doing?

He won't answer me.

I don't know.

Now he cooks a glass of water.

What is this thing? It looks like a stove.

My baby.

It's my baby boy.

Fat Boy. That's what we'll call it. Fat Boy.

- This is foolishness!

- Patience, Doc.

Please, I've got work to do.

Come on, Doc! Take a look.

Boy, ain't that something?

But how did I do it? Where's the juice?

Where's the electrical cord?

Kerosene.

I made ice out of fire.

Yes. So it seems.

Wanna see how it works?

No, no! Some other time. Here.

This is just a scale model.

I'm planning on building you

a huge one, Doc. What do you think?

What I think is...

...l'm in the asparagus business,

not the inventing business.

You're missin' the point, Doc.

I can preserve the excess

with Fat Boy here.

- With that thing? It's too small.

- I told you, this is a scale model!

And it's ingenious, Mr. Fox.

That's why I hired you.

But I also hired you to do

what I ask you to do.

To come up with a simple,

practical cooling system in the barn...

...and not fool around with crazy schemes

and go off in my time...

...inventing contraptions!

Now, please, to work!

What's this? It's not a rest period!

We have work to do.

Close that door. We'll lose all the cold.

He didn't like it very much, Dad.

He hated it. Positively hated it.

Absolute contempt.

But I'm glad of that.

That's what really gets me cookin'.

What would have happened if he liked it?

Then I really would've been worried.

Then I'd have gone back to bed.

What do you know?

We got a couple of minutes, okay?

All right. Here you go.

Migrant workers.

Polski's peons.

Right out of the jungle.

Didn't know when they were well off.

They think this is a paradise.

I'd trade places with them in a minute.

You know what they got down there?

Geothermal energy.

All the juice they need 5,000 feet

under the surface.

It's the earth's bellybutton.

Imagine the problems they have

in the jungle without refrigeration.

If they saw an ice cube

they'd probably think it was a...

...a diamond, or a jewel of some kind.

Ice...

...is civilization.

I want to show you boys something.

They call this place the "Monkey House."

- Who calls it that?

- Kids.

I'd whale the tar out of 'em.

Don't let me hear you call it that.

Look at this place. These are poor people.

Look at what they own.

Look at what they eat. They don't even eat

the asparagus they cut.

I don't think we should be here.

They welcome visitors, Son.

It's a custom from the jungle.

"Be kind to strangers. Never know

when you might be one yourself."

That's the law of the jungle.

But this isn't the jungle, Dad.

No? No, because no jungle

is as murderous and foul as this is.

They trade green trees for this ruin.

It's pathetic.

And it makes me mad...

...because they're going to end up

being part of the problem.

It would take courage to go there.

Go where?

The jungle.

Not ordinary gumption...

...but 4:
00 in the morning courage.

And who's got that?

Thanks.

What is it?

I think something's going to happen.

Like what?

Something terrible.

When you're young, the world seems like

a big and a strange place.

If you think about it too much,

you start to worry.

But Dad's not young and he's worried.

He's always like that

before a new invention.

You know him. He's got a lot on his mind.

But something is going to happen.

Something good.

- Good night.

- Sleep tight.

- Hey, boys!

- Cornelius!

- Come here and give me a hand!

- Good morning. What that?

I got somethin' for ya.

You're gonna love this.

- Is that right?

- Yeah.

I need four men, two on each side.

Cornelius, grab that thing

with the wheels on it.

We're not allowed to go in.

What's going on in there?

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