gab-14712 Let me open this review with a little history lesson. (I know, sooooo boring right?) My hometown of Lebanon used to be a bigger town. But in the 1970's, part of my town was leveled in order to create a reservoir. So people living in the area where the reservoir was being built had to leave their homes. So a part of our civilization vanquished for a manmade body of water. There is a similar theme in this film, Deliverance. The film takes place in the mountains of Georgia and a river which is very dear to our main characters is about to disappear because of a dam building which would flood the area. Like in my area, people have to leave their homes to escape the flooding. It is a very sad situation all around, but that theme makes this movie all the more better.I enjoyed Deliverance very much. It has been regarded of one of the best films of 1972 and I think I can agree with that. This is just a simple adventure of four men traveling the rapids in pursuit of some adventure, but of course problems will arise. The movie works very well as a adventure film and it was interesting to see how each character develops with some of the action that goes on. This film delivers on its promise of characterization. Each of the four men bring their personality to the trip. One dude is a macho man named Lewis (Burt Reynolds). He is the tough guy of the group and this expedition was his idea. The other main character is Ed (Jon Voight) who also exhibits some toughness skills (just watch that cliff climbing scene). Then we have Bobby (Ned Beatty) who is an overweight man that is afraid of many things it seems. Finally, we have Drew (Ronny Cox) who took part in my favorite scene in the movie- "The Dueling Banjos" Scene where he squared off against a mentally-challenged boy in a contest between a banjo and a guitar before the group began their journey.The scene that everyone talks about and that gave awareness to the movie is the scene where mountain men raped poor Bobby. It was a very well-made scene with such powerful lines of dialogue such as "I'll make you squeal like a pig." Regardless, it is a very brutal scene and it's incredibly hard to watch. The sequence was a pretty long one, but it showed an example of how men can survive in a harsh, primitive environment. Kudos to Jon Voight's character, Ed exacting revenge against the two men who raped Bobby. The film may seem like a quiet adventure film, but it becomes instantly loud the moment this scene appears. Director John Boorman does a wonderful job in creating tension and thrills setting up the scene before it actually happens.The acting is very good and I could expect no less for a film that features wonderful character development. Burt Reynolds plays a man with a machismo personality (no surprise there), but he does it very well. Jon Voight impressed me in this film. He was so great in 1969's Midnight Cowboy and was the best thing about 1970's mediocre Catch-22, so he really comes into his own here. The way he scaled the cliffs in order to kill those men showed what a brave man he was. This film was not insured and to save costs, each of the actors did their own stunts. If you saw that cliff, you would be very surprised. Ned Beatty gives a wonderful performance and a pained one. That scene where he got raped (and you see all of it on screen) is a powerful, intense scene and he gave such raw emotion. Ronny Cox arguably had the smaller role, but his scene where he is playing the banjo sticks out to me. His character seemed to be the most moral guy of the group.The film makes good use of its cinematographer, Vilmos Zsigmond. He was the man who filmed the gorgeous 1971 movie, McCabe and Mrs. Miller. Now he delivers great camera-work in this movie. It was a tough shoot because of the location of the movie set against rapids, but Vilmos really made it work and the picture is gorgeous set amongst the American wilderness.John Boorman delivered an exquisite adventure film in the form of Deliverance. It is a movie about survival and how men from the city can survive in the wild using their primitive instincts. The movie gained some controversy because of the squealing pig scene, but it remains a very powerful scene that is hard to watch. The other scene to keep an eye on is the banjo scene. That is essentially all of the music the film has, but it is quite worth it. The film has a gorgeous, naturalistic look and it is very well-acted. If you are looking for an adventure story, look no further than Deliverance.My Grade: A-

Tweekums Four men from Atlanta, Lewis, Ed, Bobby, and Drew, have decided to canoe along one of the last unspoilt rivers in the state before the entire valley is flooded as part of a hydroelectric scheme. When they get to the place they want to enter the river they pay a couple of locals to drive their cars to the town they are heading to. Once they are on the water in their two canoes they enjoy the wilderness but not for long. The two parties are separated and Ed and Bobby wait on the riverbank; here they encounter a pair of less than friendly mountain men. Ed is tied to a tree and Bobby is brutally raped. As they prepare to assault Ed, Lewis arrives and dispatches one of the assailants with an arrow. The other one escapes. The four friends discuss what to do with the body; Drew things they must inform the authorities but Lewis is convinced that it would be far better just to bury him as they probably wouldn't be believed. When they continue they must pass through some particularly dangerous rapids. One canoe is destroyed and Drew disappears; Ed, who now has a broken leg, is convinced that Drew was shot. Believing that the shooter will pick them off when they move Drew climbs the wall of the gorge and in the morning encounters a man with a rifle. He kills the man but isn't absolutely certain that he had actually being shooting at them. As they approach the end of the journey they must concoct a believable story.This is a famously disturbing story; largely due to the infamous rape scene… even after forty five years that is a memorably shocking moment. It isn't the only disturbing moment; when they get on the river everything looks beautiful, totally unspoilt, but soon there are things that are just a little off. After the encounter with the rapist and his friend the tension is much higher; it isn't just the fear of more unfriendly locals. The rapids become more dangerous making it seem as though nature itself doesn't want them on the river. The scenes of the men going through these dangerous situations feels very real; I was not surprised to learn that the cast did their own stunts. The four leads; Burt Reynolds, John Voight, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox, as Lewis, Ed, Bobby, and Drew respectively, do an impressive job making the viewer believe in them and their situation. As things happen to them their characters develop nicely. The supporting cast are impressive too. Overall I'd definitely recommend this classic film but understand that it won't be for everybody.

rdoyle29 Here's an example of a film that's greatness seems to transcend it's own bad ideas. Seen as a statement about the importance of survival and meeting challenges in being a man, it's really not very good, and doesn't really manage to deal with these ideas in the way that a film like "Straw Dogs" does. Reynolds's character is sort of the film's mouthpiece and he's frankly a bit of an idiot. But viewed as an action film, it's incredible ... one of the best ever made. It's a finely tuned machine with almost no spare parts and features some truly incredible cinematography from Vilmos Zsigmond and at least 5 incredible performances.

Mike_Yike I first saw Deliverance when it was in the theaters what seems like a million years ago. Burt Reynolds became a big start and Jon Voight received another big boost in his career thanks to the film. The only real problem I had with the movie was when I stopped and thought about the general plot line afterwards. It isn't exactly airtight.The boys killed a mountain man, justifiably. One of two mountain men roaming the woods together. The other ran off. They decided to bury the corpse and forever after remain mum about it. Then Drew, played by Ronny Cox, was killed though no one knows whether the death came at the hand of the river, or a gunshot presumably by the second mountain man. Injuries were inconclusive on the dead body. The fear was that it was a gunshot by the second mountain man stationed high on the cliffs overhead. Voight ends up climbing the cliff, finding the mountain man and killing him. As far as anyone knows, the second mountain man, now dead and hidden at the bottom of the river, never disclosed the fate of the first mountain man. Yet the boys felt compelled to make-up a story even though there was no evidence connecting them to anything. But probably more odd was the local sheriff suspected the boys of wrongdoing without any evidence suggesting they even saw the mountain men. It would seem more plausible that the sheriff would have taken a report on the death of Drew and then asked the three remaining boys if during their travels they had happened to see the two mountain men. "No, can't say that we did," would have been a reply and that would have been that. I guess that would make for a short, boring movie.