Deliverance
Tags: mystery, psychological, realism, murder, cult, violence, suspenseful

Plot synopsis:
Atlanta businessmen Lewis (Burt Reynolds), Ed (Jon Voight), Bobby (Ned Beatty), and Drew (Ronny Cox) decide to canoe down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded over by the upcoming construction of a dam and lake. Lewis, an experienced outdoorsman, is the de facto leader. Ed is also a veteran of several trips but lacks Lewis' machismo. Bobby and Drew are novices.From the start, it is clear the four are aliens in this unknown locale. The redneck locals are crude and unimpressed with the presence of outsiders, and the film implies that some of them are inbred. Drew briefly connects with a local mentally-challenged, inbred, banjo-playing boy by joining him in an impromptu bluegrass jam (the 'Dueling Banjos'). But when the song ends, the boy turns away without saying anything, refusing the impressed Drew's handshake. The four "city boys", as they are called by one of the unfriendly locals, exhibit a slightly condescending attitude toward the locals; Bobby, in particular, is patronizing toward them. Nevertheless, Lewis manages to negotiate with a pair of local mechanics (by bribing them) to drive their Bronco vehicles to a town downriver, where they will pick them up in three days. Afterwards, the four get into their two canoes and paddle off.The men spend the day canoeing down the river in pairs before camping by the riverside at night. Shortly before they retire for the night, Lewis tells the others to be quiet and disappears into the dark woods to investigate a sound he heard. He returns shortly after and says that he didn't find anything. When asked whether he heard "something or someone," he tells them he doesn't know.The next morning, Ed wakes first, and heads into the woods with his bow and arrow. He sees a deer, but cannot keep his aim straight. He fires and misses. He returns as the others are finishing breakfast and loading the canoes. Bobby and Ed get away first, and Lewis says that he and Drew will catch up.After a while, Bobby and Ed pull off to the side to wait, and notice a pair of unkempt hillbillies emerging from the woods; one toothless (Herbert 'Cowboy Coward), and one wielding a shotgun (Bill McKinney). Bobby speculates that they have a still hidden in the woods and amicably offers to buy some, but the hillbillies immediately become angry, and are not moved by Bobby's sarcastic comment. The two hillbillies force Bobby at gunpoint to strip naked. The lead hillbilly chases after and physically harasses Bobby as he tries to escape. Bobby's ear is twisted to bring him to his hands and knees, and he is then ordered to "squeal like a pig". Ed is bound to a tree with his own belt by the toothless hillbilly, helpless as McKinney's character violently sodomizes Bobby.As the two hillbillies now set their sights on Ed's "pretty mouth", Ed notices Lewis sneaking up behind them through the trees with an arrow drawn. Lewis shoots and kills the rapist with a single arrow through his back, as the toothless hillbilly quickly escapes into the woods. Lewis and Drew begin to argue with each other about whether to inform the authorities. While Drew wants to find a phone to call the police, Lewis argues that they would be arrested and not receive a fair trial, as he claims that the entire local hillbilly population are related to one another, and the jury would be comprised of "the dead man's friends and relatives". Likewise, Bobby does not want the incident of his sodomy to become public. Lewis tells them that since the entire area will be flooded by a lake soon, the body would never be found, and that the escaped hillbilly could not possibly risk informing the police on them, since he had participated in the incident. The men vote to side with Lewis' recommendation to bury the dead hillbilly's body and continue as though nothing had happened. During the digging, Drew is obviously agitated, and screams at each exertion.After having buried the body, the four make a run for it downriver, cutting their trip short. Soon, disaster strikes as the canoes reach a dangerous stretch of rapids. In the lead canoe, Ed repeatedly asks Drew to don his life jacket, but an unnerved Drew ignores him without a word of explanation. As Drew and Ed reach the rapids, a faint gunshot is heard and Drew's head appears to shake, perhaps from being shot, and he falls forward into the river.After Drew disappears into the river, Ed loses control of his canoe and both canoes collide on the rocks, spilling Lewis, Bobby, and Ed into the river. Ed and Drew's wooden canoe breaks in half while Lewis and Bobby's metal canoe remains intact. Lewis breaks his right femur on a rock and the others are washed ashore alongside him in a gorge facing a massive cliff. The badly-injured Lewis believes the toothless hillbilly shot Drew and is now stalking them.Later that night, under cover of darkness, Ed climbs the nearby rock face in order to dispatch the suspected shooter using his bow, while Bobby stays behind to look after Lewis. Ed reaches the top and hides out until the next morning, when he sees a man standing on the cliff holding a rifle, looking down into the gorge where Lewis and Bobby are hiding. The man appears to be the hillbilly that escaped through the woods.Ed, a champion archer who earlier lost his nerve while aiming at a deer, again freezes in spite of his clear shot. The man notices Ed and fires his rifle as Ed clumsily releases his arrow. Ed falls to the ground in a panic and accidentally stabs himself with another of his arrows. The man stumbles toward Ed and is about to kill him when he drops his rifle and collapses, revealing Ed's arrow sticking through the back of his neck (Ed had in fact hit him after all). Ed suddenly remembers that the hillbilly who tried to assault him had no front teeth, but upon initial examination, this man appears to have all his teeth, but upon closer examination, Ed discovers that his victim has a partial, movable plate for his front teeth... which are missing.Ed lowers the body down the cliff with a rope and climbs down after it. His rope breaks and he and the dead body fall into the river. Ed swims ashore and meets with Bobby and Lewis. Ed asks more than once if Bobby is certain the dead man is the same toothless hillbilly as the one they confronted earlier. Clearly irritated and not completely sure himself, Ed snaps at Bobby and asks him to confirm the dead man's identity.Ed and Bobby weigh the dead hillbilly down with stones and drop him into the river and then set out with the injured Lewis in the surviving canoe. A little later, they come upon Drew's grotesquely-contorted corpse. After being unable to find any definite gunshot wound on the dead Drew (save for a deep gash on his forehead which may or may not be a graze from a bullet), they also weigh it down into the river. Ed points out that they don't want the authorities examining Drew's body and possibly discovering a gunshot wound. Ed gives a short eulogy and sinks Drew into the river to ensure that he will never be found. With Lewis injured and Drew dead, Ed becomes the leader, trying to ensure their story is consistent, knowing the authorities will investigate.After canoeing through more rapids, Ed, Bobby, and Lewis finally reach their destination, the town of Aintry, which will soon be submerged by the river and is currently being evacuated. They call the police and take the injured Lewis to the local hospital while Sheriff Bullard (played by the author James Dickie himself) arrives to investigate the incident. One of the deputies, Arthur Queen, has a missing brother-in-law (ostensibly one of the hillbillies Lewis and Ed killed) and is highly suspicious of the "city boys" version of events. Ed and Bobby visit Lewis' hospital room to make sure Lewis' version of events is consistent with theirs. While they are uncertain whether the apparently unconscious Lewis understands them, as the doctors enter, Lewis appears to awaken, gives Ed and Bobby a knowing wink, and says he remembers nothing. Ed and Bobby then spend the night at a local boarding house and have an uneventful dinner with the local tenants who tell them that they are leaving town soon because of the dam-lake project.Another day or two later, Ed and Bobby pack up their two Bronco trucks outside the boarding house and they prepare to pick Lewis up from the hospital and drive home. Just then, Sheriff Bullard suddenly appears and asks Ed why there were four life jackets found in the canoe when only he, Lewis, and Bobby came out of the river. Stammering, Bobby suggests there may have been an extra one, then realizes his mistake. But Ed intervenes and says 'no', that Drew was not wearing his life jacket when he fell into the river and he does not know why. The sheriff also tells them that his men found the remains of one of the canoes above the last set of rapids where the guys claim that Drew drowned, plus no trace of Drew's body has been found along the river. Ed continues to feign ignorance, claiming not to know anything as well as claiming not to have seen anyone else in the area.While the Sheriff remains suspicious, but having no evidence to arrest them (or perhaps sensing the truth of what happened) he simply tells Ed: "Don't ever do nothin' like this again. Don't ever come back up here. I don't ever wanna see you or your friends again! I'd kinda like to see this town die peaceful," to which Ed readily agrees and drives away with Bobby.The men vow to keep their story a secret for the rest of their lives, which proves to be psychologically burdensome for Ed; in the final scene, he awakes screaming from a nightmare in which a dead man's hand (presumably that of the possibly-mistaken man shot by Ed's arrow on the top of the cliff) rises from the lake.

Review: Nor can I help but feel this movie doomed Ned Beatty's acting career (after seeing this film, every time you see Ned Beatty in any other role, you can't help but remember the infamous riverbank scene).
Even people who have never seen the movie know the ghastly meaning of the words "squeal like a pig".It is truly worth taking the time to see this film.
John Boorman's "Deliverance" concerns four suburban Atlanta dwellers who take a ride down the swift waters of the Cahulawassee The river is about to disappear for a dam construction and the flooding of the last untamed stretches of land The four friends emphasize different characters: a virile sports enthusiast who has never been insured in his life since there is no specific risk in it (Burt Reynolds); a passionate family man and a guitar player (Ronny Cox); an overweight bachelor insurance salesman (Ned Beatty); and a quiet, thoughtful married man with a son who loves to smoke his pipe (Jon Voight).What follows is the men's nightmarish explorations against the hostile violence of natureIt is also an ideal code of moral principle about civilized men falling prey to the dark laws of the wilderness Superbly shot, this thrilling adult adventure certainly contains some genuinely gripping scenes.
The setting is backwoods Georgia, with its forests, mountains, and wild rivers.The director, John Boorman, chose to use local people, not actors, to portray secondary characters.
In a story about Darwinian survival of the fittest, the film conveys the idea that humans are part of nature, not separate from it."Deliverance" is very much a product of its time when, unlike today, Americans expressed concern over a vanishing wilderness.
But what really distinguishes this film, about four business    men who get more than they bargained for on a canoe trip, is that director John Boorman(Excalibur) breaks all the characters away from plain caricatures or stereotypes.
Ned Beatty(Life) is also good in an extremely hard role, come on getting raped by a hillbilly, while Ronny Cox turns in a believable performance.One thing that really made this movies powerful for me is that the villains were as terrifying as any I had ever seen.
Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, and Ronny Cox portray four Atlanta businessmen who decide to take a canoe trip down the wild Cahulawassee River in northern Georgia before it is dammed up into what Reynolds calls "one big, dead lake."But the local mountain folk take a painfully obvious dim view of these "city boys" carousing through their woods.
And the following day, continuing on down the river, Beatty and Voight are accosted and sexually assaulted (the film's infamous "SQUEAL!" sequence) by two vicious mountain men (Bill McKinney, Herbert "Cowboy" Coward).
Burt Reynolds plays the outdoor fanatic Lewis who brings his friends on the journey, Jon Voght, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. The film is directed by John Boorman from the novel by the same name from 1970.What is it then that makes Deliverance so incredibly good.
Burt Reynolds says in his autobiography that he finally told Dickey off and the big man replied, "That's exactly what Lewis would say!" And later on during the shoot, before departing, he also said, "I understand my presence would be more efficacious in it's absence!" The four men on this trip into the horrors of confronting dangers both in Mother Nature's and deranged human assailant form find out what real fear is all about.
If there were more movies like Deliverence that deliver a real story, powerfully and unapologetically, violence in movies would become a powerful tool for education, very probably reducing its frequency by those who shockingly discover being involved is nothing to be proud or righteous about, a lesson learned way too late by so many walking wounded, often living right next to to you.As a side note, I was told by a literary friend that James Dickey wrote this over the course of a manic weekend on a bet.
The acting is absolutely stellar -- the chemistry between Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox is incredible as four guys from wildly differing backgrounds, united by a common thread of humanity.
The white-water cinematography and choreography is breathtaking, especially considering that this was shot in the early 1970s.At first, from a quick glance, Deliverance appears to be a straightforward adventure story; however, the film goes down a deeply philosophical route as the four men race their vehicles into the back-country and then their canoes down the wilds of the river.
southerner" comparisons--all the characters in this film are southerners, although each character (major and minor), for all intensive purposes, transcends categorization.The "Dueling Banjo" scene, in which guitar-slinging Ronny Cox battles a banjo-playing hillbilly kid (the actor, Billy Redden, was actually a resident of the backwoods region where this was shot) sharply complements the men's fight against the river, and the river's fight to remain wild.
If you enjoy the song "Dueling Banjos", I strongly suggest that you pick up the Deliverance soundtrack, which also includes 17 additional songs played by amazing banjo musician Eric Weissberg (I believe only "Deuling Banjos" and maybe one or two other songs were actually used in the film).There are some disturbing scenes in this film, so it is not for the overly squeamish but, if you think you can handle the river, I encourage you to take this powerful, action-packed journey into the philosophical backwater of humanity!.
Deliverance is the fascinating, haunting and sometimes even disturbing tale by James Dickey, turned into a brilliant movie by John Boorman.
The issue of murder, self-defence, escaping from the law but not being able to hide from your conscience (the nightmares of Ed - Jon Voight), the homosexual rape scene, the burial and dumping of bodies, the stills for moonshine in the backwoods, the "duelling banjoes" - brilliant scenes that make this film memorable while set against a backdrop of raging rivers and pristine wilderness.
Released in 1972 and directed by John Boorman from James Dickey's novel, "Deliverance" is an adventure thriller about four guys from the Atlanta area who take a canoe/camping trip in the Georgia wilderness.
I didn't know anything about the film or anyone who had seen it, but it looked like a potentially good adventure story so I finally decided to rent it.The first Act plays out as you would expect, four guys escaping the shackles of urban life enjoying a canoe trip, and then -- WHAM -- Act 2 hits you like a ton of bricks.
The unassuming Ed (Jon Voight) takes the reigns as deliverer, with Bobby (Ned Beatty) lending a helping hand.The film was shot on the Chattooga River in NE Georgia, which borders South Carolina.
Actually, Lewis is no less the moralist -- after all, he makes a moral judgment and unhesitatingly acts -- it's just that he refuses to risk allowing the local authorities and a potential inbred jury (likely related somehow to the hillbillies) twist his just and necessary actions into a crime.Writer James Dickey effectively plays the towering Southern Sheriff in the epilogue.The Deluxe Edition DVD includes an excellent 4-part documentary that runs about 45 minutes.
Four Atlanta friends - Lewis (Burt Reynolds), Ed (John Voight), Bobby (Ned Beatty), and Drew (Ronny Cox) – decide to canoe down the Cahulawassee River out in the Georgia wilderness.
Not so, the Chattooga River sequences are electrifying, the rapids scenes (brilliantly filmed with Voight and Reynolds doing real work, and getting real injuries) are merely setting up the unmanning of our "macho" guys just around the corner.
I simply LOVE the acting from our four main characters, Jon Voight as Ed the nervous but yet violent family guy, Burt Reynolds as Lewis (in one of his best roles ever) a tough and untamed son of nature, Ned Beatty as Robert (or Bobby) the choppy and (annoying?) guy, and finally Ronny Cox as Drew, the cozy and nice family guy.I can't think of any scene in this movie, where I don't feel entertained.
It deserves the award for depicting the most horrific male rape ever committed to celluloid.For those who still have yet to experience this classic film, the plot concerns a four man group heading into the wilderness for a canoe trip and what happens when they're threatened in alien environment.
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it's turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds) takes his friends (John Voight , Ned Beatty , Ronny Cox) on a river-rafting trip they'll never forget into the risked American back-country filled with rare and violent hillbillies .This interesting picture contains intrigue , action , violence , marvelous landscapes and a strong ecological denounce.
I'm surprised this film averages a relatively paltry 7.9 on the rating scale; it's just about peerless in my opinion as a horror movie, with the ill-fated quartet (Voight, Reynolds, Beatty and Cox) canoeing down a river marked for imminent landfill whose idyllic sojourn turns to chaos when Beatty is violently attacked by a pair of mountain men.Voight is established as a bit of a fence-sitter, essentially living vicariously through the macho Reynolds, an abrasive if likable rogue living dangerously for kicks.
That's exactly what four friends from the city thought -- until everything went wrong."Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you can find anything."  Lewis Medlock John Boorman's 1972 film Deliverance tells the epic story of a group of men's struggle to survive deep in the heart of the dangerous American back-country.
The acting performances are exceptional, especially John Voight's portrayal of family-man Ed and Burt Reynolds' presentation of the adventurous and likable Lewis.Deliverance is simply one of the best films I've ever seen.
Certainly this would have to be considered the best film of the 1970's and one of the best of all time.It has a great cast,breathtaking scenery and the storyline is based on the magnificent James Dickey masterpiece.This is one of the first movies in which the smart Aleck city slicker type tangles with some backwoods inbred yokels.Four men( played by Burt Reynolds,Ronny Cox,Jon Voight and Ned Beatty) decide to canoe up a river in backwoods Georgia before a dam that is being built destroys the river and the surrounding area.Their trip goes ever so wrong after some mountain men capture two of the city slickers and mess them up a bit.Now the rape scene isn't as graphic as you've probably heard,in fact,it is rather tame compared to the huge over-hype that the scene has gotten over the years.Ned Beatty's first film and he gets anally raped by a yokel!
After battling the mountain men and the river to get back to town the surviving city men then have to endure a sheriff(wonderfully played by Dickey himself) who tries to find out what exactly happened up on that river.This is one of the all time classic movies and is masterfully directed by John Boorman.After watching the great acting in this movie you can only wonder what happened to the careers of Reynolds and Voight after this movie and why they both only made one or two decent movies in the 35 years since this film.But in this film,they and everyone else, are absolutely perfect..
The makers of this fine film did a terrific job of getting you involved with the characters,as they suffered through this horrible ordeal.The horrific scene in the woods was done so superbly that you forget that these men were just actors,playing parts.I have never gotten so immersed in a film as I have this one.Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight were never better on screen,as well as fine performances by Ned Beatty,Ronny Cox,Bill McKinney,and though he appeared only briefly,James Dickey,the man who authored the book upon which the film is based,as the sheriff of Aintry.It is somewhat disturbing,and kids,of course,should be shielded from it,but this is great,dramatic cinema..
This film has a great ensemble cast of fantastic actors that includes Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. The film has these dudes going on a canoeing/camping trip in the soon to extinct Cahulawassee River, intact before it gets expanded and turns into a lake.
Burt Reynolds is the alpha male in his most iconic role , Jon voight as the Everyman who uses a horrible situation to show what he's made of , Ned Beatty who I'm sure will never want to film on a canoe again and also Ronny cox as the kind banjo playing one of the group .
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.
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.
Intent on seeing the Cahulawassee River before it is turned into one huge lake, outdoor fanatic Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds) takes his friends on a river-rafting trip they will never forget into the dangerous American back-country.This film is a classic and needs no praise from me.
Four Atlanta city boys, leader Lewis Medlock (Burt Reynolds), Ed Gentry (Jon Voight), condescending Bobby Trippe (Ned Beatty) and banjo playing Drew Ballinger (Ronny Cox), decide to take a canoe trip before that happens.
Also great are the four central performances by Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. Each of them inhabit their character completely and fully immerse themselves in their roles.
The film was 33 at the time; it is now 42 and as good as ever.The film, which is based on the book by James Dickey, follows Ed (Jon Voight), Drew (Ronny Cox), Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Lewis (Burt Reynolds).
Four Atlanta businessmen, Ed, (Jon Voight), Lewis, (Burt Reynolds), Drew, (Ronny Cox), and Bobby, (Ned Beatty), are spending their weekend canoeing down an Georgia river that will soon turn into a lake, thanks to the local power company damming the river.
Even though some people never went canoeing down a river, this is a perfect example what could happen when you travel through the rapids and the jagged rocks that are in the river.One of the best scenes in Deliverance is when Drew and a local boy feud against each other with their musical instruments.
Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ronny Cox, and Ned Beatty star as four friends from Atlanta going on a canoe trip down river in a remote wilderness in Georgia.
His stunned humiliation says it all.The lack of recognition of the canoeing party by the banjo-playing boy as they pass under him on the river is one of the best moments of foreshadowing ever on film.I believe that the best movies leave a lot of unanswered questions, or at least things to ponder.
There isn't a man who's seen this film who didn't fantasize about "boy, if that were me in the woods..."   A  Two final thoughts about Deliverance: It shows Burt Renyolds can ACT.
Each actor is right on the money, living in the skin of their characters, including Jon Voigt as Ed who seems ill-at-ease with hunting and rafting, Ned Beatty as Bobby nicknamed "Chubby" as the salesman who seems like a fish out of water, Ronnie Cox as Drew the musician but the most unstable of the group, and particularly Burt Reynolds as Lewis, the unofficial leader of the group who seems the most at-home.
It's that atmosphere and realism that makes "Deliverance" quite a disturbing and frightening film, even for todays standards.Thinking back, not that much happens four people go off on a canoe, two hill billies arrive and they go off to kill the hill billies and the hill billies go off to kill the foursome.
His character Lewis was the ultimate macho man at the beginning of the film but in the end, because of the incidents on the river, is knocked down a few notches literally and figuratively.Jon Voight's character Ed was certainly the heart and soul of the movie; Testing himself to the limit to survive a very extraordinary situation.
Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox all play their roles so well that you immediately forget that you're watching some well known actors.
Deliverance (1972)**** (out of 4)Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox plays friends from the city who decide to go to the country so that they can white water before the river is turned into a lake.
I may be wrong, but this is the last film where I considered Burt Reynolds an actual actor, who transformed the role, and delivered a message.Jon Voight and Ned Beatty are also excellent.
The scene that follows is as brilliant as it is disturbing and the music becomes a soundtrack for the rest of the film.The four canoeists (Reynolds, Voight, Beatty, Cox) trip down the River (soon to be flooded by a huge lake- a very neat twist from writer Dickey) doesn't become a trip to survive nature as one assumes it will be, but a fight for survival from fellow men.
The film makes very uncomfortable viewing (and essentially unsatisfying) and you never feel a real attachment with the protaganists but if you like your movies with a bit of originality and horror this is the one for you...Reynolds puts in one of his better perfomances and Jon Voight (father of Angelina Jolie) acts in what probably is his best performance to date.
From the time travelling down the calm part of the river where there is no dialogue, to where the very disturbing rape scene occurs, and even towards the end of the movie where Voight has to climb the cliff to find their attackers at the middle of the rapids.That all being said, the most important aspect of the film is the story itslef.
It starts peaceful enough with Lewis (Reynolds), Ed (Jon Voight), Drew (Ronny Cox), and Bobby (Ned Beatty) going canoeing down the rivers before they experience the excitement of the rapids.