Deliverance | | Cast : | Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty | | Director : | John Boorman | | Studio : | Warner Studios | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Dolby, Widescreen | | Released Date : | July 30, 1972 | | DVD Released Date : | June 07, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), English (Original Language), French (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | July 16, 2005 | | Summary | Back to Nature | Content
 | Civilization vs primordial man. Four city slickers from Atlanta foolishly go where they aren't wanted and don't belong. They have no business there and haven't even mapped the river. Their modern equipment and arrogant college education is no match for the mountain people who are being rooted out of their longtime homes by a dam. The mountain people are the weak and poor and are getting screwed by the gov't, by civilization and by these fancy cityboys. Generations are being swept aside as if they were never there. In a moment of horrifying irony these hillbillies get to screw their own tormentors. It is no coincidence the Ned Beatty character, who is the most condescending and dismissive of the foursome; as well as being the least suited to the canoeing trip, is the one who suffers the ultimate indignity. When they finally stagger off the river, the city guys have one dead, two injured and one raped to show for their boy scouting. They should have stayed home and played golf. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 01, 2005 | | Summary | Tough To Watch At Times But Worth It | Content
| OK, enough of the "Deliverance" jokes! This 1972 film is a very profound movie that is well made and well acted. Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox, Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds were all rising stars at the time they made "Deliverance." The best parts of this movie, in my mind, aren't the whitewater rafting scenes or the dueling banjos, but the conversation scenes around the campfire where you get a feel for each of the characters. This is more than an adventure movie, it's a profound human drama about how people react when they're placed in abnormal circumstances, and the effect that those events have on them. During the 1970's, there were some high quality human interest stories made, and this ranks high among them. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 25, 2005 | | Summary | Classic, Disturbing, Intriguing | Content
| Genre: Thriller, Drama
Genre Grade: B+
Final Grade: A-
Deliverance is a great film about four friends who decide to go on a canoe trip in a river that's about to be flooded and turned into a lake. Before setting out on their journey they encounter a boy who plays the banjo and one of the men plays the guitar. Together they play "Dueling Banjos" in the best scene of the film. While this scene might not completely fit into the movie, it became very famous and gave this movie its claim to fame (along with the disturbing line "He's got a real pretty mouth on him, don't he?").
The movie itself was very realistic - as though the viewer were standing on the riverside watching the events of their fateful trip unfold. I will not spoil what all happens because that's part of the thrill of watching this movie. Keep in mind that this film is not mainstream and offers no strong conclusion, but instead leaves you wondering what all was left in the river - what all is now lying at the bottom of that lake...
Note: Mean Creek is sort of a "younger" version of this film - a movie which I highly recommend. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 19, 2005 | | Summary | Civility's Voyage Into Nature's Hidden Savagery | Content
| John Boorman's (Excalibur, Zardoz, Emerald Forest) adaptation of James Dickey's novel about the superficial urban mantle of untamed nature. A very powerful film now well known for its duelling banjo scene.
The story follows four professionals from Atlanta who choose to find a remote stretch of river in the Appalachians to go rafting. The more the characters go into the country the more civilization seems to be decaying or non-existant. The people in those parts are inbred and not open to city folk. Once they find their perfect river, their trip soon becomes a nightmarish odyssey of survival none of them will ever forget.
This film is really an allegory of the frailty of civilization and people's false sense of security they derive from it in a place where it obviously doesn't exist at all. The only character who realizes that immeditely is Burt Reynold's character who's more of an outdoorsman than the rest of his friends: he realizes that nature is not civilization and that it could care less about human life. Jon Voight's character is the philosophical introvert who also realizes this paradox but is more prone to thought as opposed to action. Ned Beatty is the epidemy of weak will whose feeble physique lets nature literally rear-end him. Finally Ronny Cox is the most civil of all of them and believes that respect and good manners will keep one free from harm.
This is a great satire/drama and definitely one of Boorman's best films. The film's allegories are rich and the acting is top knotch by all of the lead actors. This is a pretty brutal movie however and is definitely not suited for any child under 13. This is a great movie to own more than to rent: it's a classic of cinema. If you like this film, you may also like Herzog's 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God' with Klaus Kinsky which has a similar plot in terms of the river being a metaphor and overlaps 'Deliverance' with similar themes as to nature's indifference to man. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 11, 2005 | | Summary | Heh heh hehe! He shore gut sum purty lips | Content
| Well if you've ever wanted to know where not to go on a canoe trip, Deliverance is your answer. These people in the Appalacian Mountains are just straight up whack. Did you see that little girl sitting with her grandmama? That looked like five generations of incest gone wrong, horribly wrong. And the little kid with the banjo? OK so he doesn't speak, but my God does he blink? Maybe he was born without eyelid muscles or something. If I was a paddling down a river and saw him on a bridge, I'd 'bout poop in my britches.
Now am I the only one to notice that the names of the four characters (Bobby, Lewis, Ed, and Drew) make an acrynom with the first letter of their names? It spells out BLED. That's exactly what your anus will do when it's violently invaded by a disgusting, unwashed hillbilly. Now the rape scene is not as graphic or as pleasant to watch as the 'I Spit on your Grave' rape scene, but it's disturbing enough.
I'm glad they killed the dude, he deserved it and he deserved to be buried two feet deep where critters could dig him up and eat him. Burt Reynolds is cool in this movie until he hurts his leg, he really doesn't do much after that. The girly man who can't even shoot a deer is now playing Rambo. He climbs up the sides of mountains and shoots the first dude he sees with a rifle.
I couldn't tell if Drew was shot or not, but after they buried that hick there was really something wrong with him. Maybe it was a blowdart dipped in pig urine or something.
Anyway, if you want a hoot'n holler'n good time, you gotta see Deliverance. |
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