Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Mosquito Coast’ On Apple TV+, Where Justin Theroux Plays An Inventor Who Takes His Family To Mexico To Avoid The Government

Paul Theroux’s novel The Mosquito Coast is about a man who has such a deep-seated distrust of government that he uproots his family to Central America and buys a village. The 1986 movie version with Harrison Ford and River Phoenix has gained appreciation over the last 35 years, so the time seemed to be right to do a modern remake. And who better to take on the role of Allie Fox than Paul Theroux’s nephew Justin Theroux?

THE MOSQUITO COAST: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: The screen is dark. A father asks his son, “How do you make ice with fire?” When the son gives up on the brainteaser, we see the inner workings of the father’s machine as a lit fire creates the energy to drive the refrigeration needed to make an ice cube.

The Gist: Allie Fox (Justin Theroux) has an invention that he thinks would be perfect for making ice in countries with unreliable electricity, and he’s showing his son Charlie (Gabriel Bateman) how it works. Allie and his family live in a sprawling house outside Stockton, CA. But something seems off.

He works for cash at a massive corporate farm. He and Charlie go into town to collect cooking oil from restaurants to use as biofuel for the cars and other things. His wife Margot (Melissa George) types on a typewriter. There are no computers or TVs in sight. When he comes home from his job — finding a foreclosure notice in his mail — Charlie has to turn off his radio and his daughter Dina (Logan Polish) has to hide the cell phone she uses to talk to her boyfriend.

Allie is counting on approval for a patent for his fire-to-ice machine, and when the Patent Office denies his application, he thinks his last chance at a decent life in the U.S. has evaporated. he shows Margot his next plan: Build a boat for them all to live in.

Are they living off the grid? Definitely. But they also are living hand to mouth, and Dina is especially tired of it. She plans on going to the same college her boyfriend goes to and shedding this itinerant life once and for all.

When Allie and Charlie are out collecting oil, he not only confronts a cop (Emily C. Chang) who wonders why Charlie isn’t in school, but he also notices a car following them around. Is he just paranoid? Maybe, but his views seem to be hard earned. He tells Charlie that the police are like “a strange dog,” and that he should assume they’re going to bite until proven otherwise.

The real reason why the Foxes live this way become apparent when Margot calls her parents (Kate Burton, Kevin Dunn) from a pay phone and can’t tell them where they are; she also painfully refuses any help, even a chicken pot pie. Another piece of evidence is how Allie chides Dina for having the phone. “No phones!” he demands, and he means it.

To avoid the agents following him, Allie takes Charlie to the dump, ostensibly to look for gold in circuit boards. But when they follow him again, then pass, he knows the jig is up. He goes home and tells everyone to pack and leave. He tries to get the cops and the agents chasing him (Kimberly Elise, James LeGros) off his family’s trail. Dina, however, decides to run away; he sacrifices himself to find Dina at the train station.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Well, there’s the 1986 movie version of The Mosquito Coast that starred Harrison Ford, River Phoenix and Helen Mirren. If you were to choose an analogue, that would be the closest. Though in many ways, this also feels like Eddie Izzard series The Riches.

Our Take: The second adaptation of Paul Theroux’s novel (yes, Paul is Justin’s uncle) tries to speed along the part of Allie Fox’s story where he and his family leave the U.S., but it also inserts a more mysterious reason why Allie wants to leave. As the first episode builds, series creators Neil Cross (Luther) and Tom Bissell keep us in the dark about Allie’s weirdness. There has to be a reason why Allie, who is damn near a genius, is taking odd jobs for cash at a farm and more or less staying off the grid. Cross and Bissell and their staff did a nice job of keeping the audience guessing as the tension ratcheted up.

Theroux (Justin, that is) plays Allie Fox with a combination of the simmering madness of Walter White and the gently suppressed rage of his portrayal of Kevin Garvey in The Leftovers. There’s no doubt that Theroux is one of the best dramatic actors on TV today, and he makes Allie Fox much more than a whackadoo that hates the government. He’s fiercely protective of his family, distrustful of authority, and willing to do whatever it takes to keep their freedom intact.

But. the dynamic of this version of The Mosquito Coast won’t just be Allie, but his family as well. Logan Polish does a fine job showing Dina’s disgust at her father’s behavior, the fact that they’re dirt poor, and the fact that they have to move at a moment’s notice. It’s not the life she wants to live. But when he tells her at the train station that the kind of problem they have isn’t one that you can sit and figure out, we know that Dina’s loyalties are split. How their relationship evolves going forward will be the most interesting part of the series.

With some keen direction by Rupert Wyatt that uses long push-ins and seemingly no-cut scenes that follow people in and around their environments, that sense of intimacy is achieved even when showing the scale of the central California landscape near Stockton. It’s important that the intimacy and scope are established from the top, as we’ll need more of it as the Foxes get into Mexico and Central America.

That the ending of the first episode was a surprise, given the fact that you know what the outcome is going to be (Theroux is the star of the series, after all), is a testament to Cross, Bissell and Wyatt establishing the right amount of tension in the episode’s final moments. It’s a great harbinger of what is to come in the season’s other six episodes.

Sex and Skin: None in the first episode.

Parting Shot: To discuss the final shot would spoil what is a fantastic final sequence.

Sleeper Star: Gabriel Bateman does a good job as Charlie, who is more loyal to Allie than his sister is, but is just old enough to still have doubts about what kind of life his father has provided for them.

Most Pilot-y Line: None, though this is a good place to put our favorite line, where Jones, the female agent tells her partner that “The problem is you drive like someone who’s trying to suck his own dick.” That’s some good writing right there.

Our Call: STREAM IT. A fine lead performance from Justin Theroux, in addition to a story that’s been rejiggered just enough to make it more modern than its source material gives this new version of The Mosquito Coast a real chance to be the next talked-about series.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream The Mosquito Coast On Apple TV+