Deliverance

Rating:
Summary: The Horror Within.
Review: DELIVERANCE is a story about four men who decide to take a canoe trip down a river in the back woods of Georgia. The river they select for their journey will soon be gone because of a huge dam being built nearby; the river and many nearby towns will soon be devoured by the giant man-made lake. While on the journey the group is temporarily split and the men run into some very vile, hostile, and unfriendly locals. Two of the men are abused while one is sexually assulted. The other two friends arrive and kill one of the abusers, but the other one gets away. What follows is a portrait of man's descent into the primitive and raging violence that lies beneath the surface.

DELIVERANCE often reminds me of Conrad's HEART OF DARKNESS and both stories have many similarities. However, in DELIVERANCE, the story is given a twist and the Kurtz's return to civilization.

This movie became famous for the scene of the dueling banjos and that scene alone makes it worth watching. However, it also contains some of the best acting Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight ever produced on film. This movie is the film that boosted Reynolds from just being another Hollywood actor to a bona fide star.

Not everyone will enjoy this movie and because of the abuse scene, some will even be offended by it. Nevertheless, DELIVERANCE is a fascinating piece of cinema exploring the evil that can live in every man.

The DVD includes some production notes, a making of featurette, and the movie's trailer.

Rating:
Summary: Life lessons from John Boorman's best work
Review: Four city-boy businessmen unwittingly take themselves on a canoe trip to barbarity along a remote river in Georgia. Adapted from the magnificent novel by James Dickey, "Deliverance" employs the river and the surrounding forest as brutal devices to gradually strip its pampered characters of all traces of civilization so that they, and we, can learn what lies beneath their cultural facades. What are we capable of doing in the absence of structured society, when we must answer only to ourselves? John Boorman shot this movie in sequence, and there's a powerful sense of progression along the cruel river. The actors, the film crew and the audience are all transported relentlessly from the light into a Conrad-like heart of darkness. It's up to each of us to see what we can discover by the time we emerge. The character Lewis, portrayed in a fine performance by Burt Reynolds, concisely sets the stage with "Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything." Macho poet Dickey collaborated tempestuously but productively with Boorman to bring this wonderful work to the screen. Neither of them ever surpassed "Deliverance" and it must surely rank as one of the best movies ever made. To learn more about Dickey, the novel, and the film, see the recent book "Summer of Deliverance" by his equally talented son, Christopher. I would also recommend that the film be viewed as a double bill with Spielberg's "Duel", which replaces Dickey's river with a monstrous truck on the backroads of California.

Rating:
Summary: Bada da da da da da da da
Review: "Now, let's you just drop them pants." This line might just sum up the most disturbing concept in this film. When in a strange environ, most anything can happen -- even getting molested by a dirty, sweaty mountain man. Deliverance is a taught, suspenseful film with nicely conceived characters played by Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox, and Ned Beatty. The foursome are on a trip down a mighty river. Final Destination: "Antree." When one of the mountain men they come upon exclaims, "This river don't go to Antree," you know these guys are in trouble!

Rating:
Summary: Is it safe to go back in the water?
Review: A great adventure of male friends on a canoeing trip in a remote wilderness region.

Bad things happen when they run up against the local mountain men...real bad things.

Rating:
Summary: Effective
Review: And dates very well. All the performances are top-notch. Its historically a little marred by the infamous "squeal like a pig" scene, but after viewing it you'll see why that joke is so inconsquential. The scenery is beautiful and the twists are unpredictable. A good recomendation for anyone tired of the majority of the formulaic tripe that dominates the theaters nowadays.This takes garbage like the newly reimagined "Texas Chainsw Massacre" and "Wrong Turn" over it's knee for a spanking.

Rating:
Summary: Fearless filmmaking.
Review: I first saw this film when I was a teenager enamored with Science Fiction films and big explosions mixed with scantily-clad females. One day, and this is still up for debate, I reached maturity. Don't laugh. I was walking through my local video store with a new release in hand but nothing else grabbed my attention. Then I glanced over and saw "Deliverance." I hadn't seen this movie in a long time and I knew, like many other films from long ago, that seeing this film at my adult stage I would see it differently. What I saw was terrifying, and I experienced everything through all four character's eyes. The title of my review is "Fearless filmmaking." That says it all here. There is a documentary on the DVD showing just how much everyone had to go through making this film. No insurance company would cover it, which makes the fact that all the actor's did their own stunts even more remarkable. All four lead actors are stellar here. I was taken in by their performances and worried about each of them with sincere emotion. I was with them in spirit during the film. I even caught myself clenching my fists at one point. Another scene I actually spoke aloud what I felt the characters were thinking. When a film draws me in like that then I know I am experiencing something special. There are many unnerving, realistic scenes that made me stare at the screen completely transfixed. This film was released in 1972, but instead of feeling dated it looks and feels more like a period film. I suppose that is because the circumstances are shot so convincingly and the emotions shown by the characters are so universal. This is a genuinely moving film. Thank you.

Rating:
Summary: The Real River Wild
Review: John Boorman will probably forever be best known as the director who gave us the brillianly conceived screen production of "Excalibur", but in 1971 he came up with this adaptation of James Dickey's novel of the same name, and with the help of four 'game' actors, created one of the best films of all time.

Even if it's not your cup of tea (due to the disturbing nature of the film), it's something everybody should watch at least once. John Voight is the audience member's representation--even if he doesn't say much, he does a great understated acting job, making clear the horror that he feels, and that we feel through him.

Ronny Cox plays the conscience, Burt Reynolds the ego, and Ned Beatty the victim of the human condition, and tied in with the wonderful cinematography, filmed on location in Georgia, this is one of the most suspenseful movies of all time.

It's also famous for the 'Duelling Banjos' scene that opens the film--unforgettable, and it sets the tone for the rest of the film, when Ronny Cox puts it best:

"I'm lost!"

Classic storytelling.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific, violent and distressing thriller!
Review: In 1972, the English filmmaker John Boorman ("Excalibur", "Hope and Glory") accomplished one of the most contusing and acclaimed dramas of Hollywood history.Based on James Dickey's original best-selling novel, Deliverance is a vigorous picture about the human cruelty directed with mastery by Boorman, who substituted the original profesional chosen to make the film, Sam Peckinpah. Dickey also worked on the movie (and he even has a small part as a sheriff), helping to give the correct contours and maintaining the fidelity to his shocking book: four friends, common and hard-working citizens, decide to spend the weekend challenging the dangerous and fast rapidses of the "last unpolluted river in Georgia".Worst is what waits for them in the margins. Starting from the moment in which they arrive in the mountains, the confusion with the eccentric hillbillies gets announced and explodes later into mutilation, murder and rape. After Voight and Beatty are assaulted by two hillbillies, comes one of the most distressing cinematography's sequences ,Ned Beatty under the power and strength of a sick local's inhabitant .Then, Reynolds kills one of the homosexuals, and the other scapes, this is the point in which Boorman sets inside that hostile and natural enviroment a type of "primitive" tribunal. This is the most frightening moment: what should they do?hide the body, kill the other mountain man who fled, and pretend that nothing happened, deceiving the authorities, or go to the police, admit the crime and take the risk that resides in a possible trial? the dignity and the heart of each character will be tested!Burt Reynolds gives an outstanding performance and, perhaps, the best of his career, as a man obsessed by adventure who will do to everything to survive,but the most astonishing and brave acting belongs to Ned Beatty,terrific as a poor overweight salesman who receives the most impressive punishment by the hillbillies. Agile, violent, and extremely dramatic, this thriller is powerful and courageous.

Rating:
Summary: A mythical journey
Review: Four differents characters; rational, roughness, weak and spiritual in a journey along a river ; you know that mythologically speaking, the river means the life.
So all the hazardous challenges and powerful violent sequences are just a methapor of that crude reality that surrounds every day.
Those men will experiment an unforgettable ethic crossroad when they face the violence in its own nature. And sooner than later these inner hidden dragons will escape from Pandora's box and they will spread all along the film with unthinkable consequences.
This movie became, almost inmediatly after its release in a cult movie. Remember that John Boorman is a very talented director,
( Excalibur, Point blank and Zardoz) , so the remarkable point is to state that the life has much more imagination than us; that the reality goes far beyond the edge of fiction; and so this gripping tale will show it; the film is deeply absorbing and challenging; what would you do in their place ; how would you react? what is wrong or what it's right when the great question is survive. The sequence in which Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds in his best performance ever) throws his arrow ; you feel the ancestral and even genetic presence of our ancient nature. And it lets you thinking about the meaning of the violence; we use the term for pedagogical purposes; but when you are in the edge of the knife, fighting with a no mercy enemy; the violence is just another device, another tool which helps you to survive. Herman Hesse stated once this wise sentence: "Only the lived thought has value".
When the movie ends you feel a clear sensation of chatarsis; in the greek mood. And when they turn again to the world; they will never be the same. In this sense I remind the last of the six interviews that Joseph Campbell gave to Bill Moyers in that unvaluable work titled The power of Myth in which Moyers asks to Campbell if he is a man with faith. Campbell, with a suggestive smile gives to Moyers that overwhelming answer: I don't need the faith, because I own the experience. And that's what the film is about.
Watch that important issue; more than a film, an unvaluable masterpiece made in 1972. And believe me: no matter if this film lost with The Godfather ; that only increases the legend and it's merely anechdotical; due the multiple implications shown in this glorious work surpases its own age.

Rating:
Summary: Splendid in parts but harrowing in others
Review: Deliverance is one of the best known films in the world, perhaps, and after a thoughtful viewing you will know why. It's intelligent, gritty and shocking and packs quite a punch.

It's a simple yet well told story of how 4 very different men set off on a canoe trip to explore a river that they think they understand. The conflicts they encounter both with nature itself and some of the unsavoury inhabitiants of the area are legendary. The film gives 4 very different characters, some of them weak, some of them strong, and shows how they conflict with each other as the differences in personalities become more obvious under stress. This is what for me makes deliverance so compelling; the rifts between the characters and how they are played. The acting is pretty good, though some characters are given more to do than others.

The scene with the hillbillies is brutal and doesn't make for easy viewing, and the film does have its fair share of violence and savagery that viewers of a sensitive dispostition may not like.

It's a very good film on a very poor DVD, mine has no special features whatsovever! It's a good thing then the film stands up well to repeated viewings. It has that infamous duelling banjos soundtrack that will stay in your head long after you have viewed the film - seldom has the music worked so well for a motion picture, it is in many ways the highlight.