Deliverance

Rating:
Summary: A guy movie with a powerful message - for chicks?
Review: Plenty of other reviews focus on the storyline, so I won't repeat what can be easily read elsewhere. This film has many (all?) of the elements of a great guy movie - city boys who experience what it really means to survive in the outdoors; great scenery; male bonding/feuding; rapids; danger; guy-talk reflections on the meaning of life - and whoa, who would have guessed that Burt Reynolds could actually sort of act?

But all that pales into insignificance compared to a single scene that concerns the male homosexual rape of another male. As a male, I've heard many explanations of rape from women as they try to convey the real meaning and impact of a rape on the female pysche. Often, women try to explain that rape has little or nothing to do with sex - it's all about POWER. Many men I know (me included) just didn't (or don't) "get it", we don't understand the true awfulness of a rape and the subsequent impact on the victim.

The searing, potent rape scene from this movie can reach out and touch men in such a way that that it brings the true horror, degradation, humiliation, and awfulness of rape home in a way most men have never seen before. Every man I've ever discussed this movie with has revealed their new understanding of what it means to be raped: the intense infliction of power by one human being over another.

Sure, this movie is much more than just a rape scene and it has much else to recommend it. But if you're a female and think this is just another action "guy" movie that you'd rather skip - you might want to think again. I think this movie has single-handedly helped more men understand a woman's perspective of the powerful, emotive issue of rape than any other movie I can think of. Disagree? Ask a guy, who's seen this movie, what his reaction is now to the squealing sound "wheeee" - and then watch his facial expression. You might just see enlightenment.

Rating:
Summary: Deliverance and My Own Life
Review: The film Deliverance has touched my life in many ways:

My neighbor, whenever he encounters someone who seems a little slow on the uptake, invariably will say, "Hand that boy a banjo."

A friend of mine was called "Bobby" until we were in college, and Deliverance was released. Immediately after seeing it, he insisted upon being called "Bob" from that point forward. He even demanded that his parents call him "Bob." He wanted NO association whatever with Ned Beatty's character "Bobby."

Upon numerous occasions, in all sorts of circumstances, friends of mine have admonished someone to "squeal like a pig." It almost never fails to evoke laughter.

Deliverance is a terrific old film. Enjoy.

Rating:
Summary: Most terrifying screen villians ever
Review: Bill Mckinney and Herbert "Cowboy" Howard are two of the most terrifying screen villians I have ever seen on film. Boorman's transfer of Dickey's novel of canoe trip gone bad is really about the various sides to human nature. The four men represent different personalities in all of us when faced with a crisis. Crisis management in this film resembles what we would later see in Pulp Fiction. Effective and atmospheric shooting in the Appalachian territory of the U.S. coupled with soundtrack also make this a DVD worth buying not to mention the bonus features on this disk.

Rating:
Summary: It's about survival, but I found it boring.
Review: This is an old film starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds about a canooing trip gone wrong. I suppose at the time this film was released, the plot must've been novel and interesting. However, I found it boring. The dialogue was choppy. The acting was goofy. The plot was actually decent up until about halfway through the film. That's when things went downhill. Jon Voight turns into Rambo, and Burt Reynolds into a crying baby.

More seriously though, I do understand the underlying theme of survival that the story tries to tell. Each of the 4 men on that trip represents a very different character. How they choose to deal with a situation says a lot about themselves. It's not a happy story.

LEAP rating (each out of 5):
============================
L (Language) - 2 (choppy)
E (Erotica) - 0 (n/a)
A (Action) - 2 (a couple of murders)
P (Plot) - 3 (half the film was ok)

Rating:
Summary: Not a review exactly.. bit of trivia
Review: Movie every bit as good as the book by James Dickey....

Rating:
Summary: HOLY SMOKE OR SHOULD I SAY DELIVERANCE!!
Review: WOW is all i can say i have seen this movie one hundred times already.WOW is the only word that springs to my brain. I lhave to say though tht out of all the parts i like it the way they talk. especially when one of the dudes says something like "what in the heel instead of "what in the hell" which would be the way i would say it but hey whatever diufferent strokes!!!! but i mean i also liked it when the guy played the banjo which inspired the famous song 'dueling banjos' and the famous 'dueling banjo' scene in Deliverence. this movie is great if you like the wohle weird southern accent thing I do!!! the canoe sceen is terific as well and i especially like it when that black haired dude is talking to that other guy and they say 'well this is the end of the line' or something like that whatever you have to see it and you know what i mean !!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: One of the best "horror" films ever made!
Review: Many may disagree with my categorization of the Burt Reynolds/Jon Voight classic as being in the horror genre, but I think that that is where it belongs. What else can be more terrifying than four guys (also the dependable Ronny Cox and Ned Beatty) out for a weekend jaunt that turns wickedly into a battle to survive some very sinister hill dwellers?

Tense and dramatic, the film features the quartet at their best. The photography of the lush Georgia mountains is breathtaking and the superb score, featuring the memorable "Dueling Banjos" heightens the on-screen happenings.

As one that had read the Dickey novel before seeing the film, I found this adaptation to be one of the few times wherein the screen and print versions complimented and complemented each other.

Rating:
Summary: What REALLY happened on the Cahulawassee River?
Review: When it comes to fictional survival stories, few can approach the sheer grueling brutality of DELIVERANCE. Brilliantly adapted by James Dickey from his best-selling book and superbly directed by John Boorman (POINT BLANK, HOPE AND GLORY), this is a tremendous endeavor. So much so that horror writer Stephen King and Boorman's fellow director Stanley Kubrick both expressed a tremendous admiration of it.

As pretty much everyone knows, DELIVERANCE focuses on four Atlanta businessmen (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox) who decide to take a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River in the Appalachian Mountains of northern Georgia before it is dammed up into a lake. It is apparent, however, that the local folk don't take kindly to these "city boys" messing around in their woods. And when Voight and Beatty are sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a pair of sadistic rednecks (Bill McKinney, Herbert "Cowboy" Coward), in the infamous "SQUEAL!!" segment, what began as a canoe trip explodes into a nightmare.

Much is made, and justifiably so, not only of the "SQUEAL" scene but also of the "Dueling Banjos" part, between Cox and a retarted mountain kid. But DELIVERANCE has much more to offer besides these moments. Like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and STRAW DOGS, it offers a hard-hitting and unflinching look at Man's penchant for violent and (arguably) abhorrent behavior. The four leads are extremely good in their roles, and McKinney and Coward make for two of the more frightening and vicious villains in screen history. Dickey appears in the film's final reel as a local sheriff who, as he puts it would "kinda like to see this town die peaceful."

Shot totally on location, and featuring ominous cinematography from the legendary Vilmos Zsigmond, DELIVERANCE is a great and frightening piece--arguably a modern gothic horror film, certainly a great action film with an undercurrent as sinister as the Cahulawassee River itself. It is not to be missed,

Rating:
Summary: A tough watch but worth it
Review: If you're expecting a happy camping trip in Deliverance, you're in for a surprise.

I wasn't prepared for the sheer suspense of one particular scene. It is so harrowing, it makes my stomach turn every time I see it. I'm begging Boorman to cut away. "Go back to Burt Reynolds" I'm yelling to the screen. "Let's see what he's up to. It can't be any worse than this." This is filmmaking at its most powerful.

The story is a simple one. Four friends head into the back woods of America - a place civilisation seems to have forgotten. They leave their cars to a bunch of in-bred and very frightening looking hillbillies and head off down the river in canoes. These back-woods are soon going to be the victims of an irrigation programme and the river and its surrounding population doesn't have much longer to live.

The foursome's first forays down the river are fun, enjoying the challenge posed by the rapids. They're exploring their animal instincts but failing. Jon Voight, in one particular scene, attempts to shoot a deer and misses by a lot. He's been away from the woods too long.

Then, out of left field comes one of the most brutal scenes in movie history. The four, instead of being under threat from the rapids are now under threat from mankind, including themselves. It is up to Voight to cover up their crime, when the film's hero, Reynolds is shot down. He succeeds or does he?

The film's open-ended. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered. And this only adds to its success. It demands repeat viewings.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: I really enjoyed the first 45 minutes of this movie, and then I was totally traumatized by the remainder. However, I think that is exactly what was intended. The scenes of the the white water kayaking in the beginning are surpisingly exciting and tense, and they work great at building intensity. The performances by every person in this cast were superb. I can say that this is a classic, and I can also say that I never want to see it again.