- When the bold survivalist Lewis (Burt Reynolds) asks his timid travel companion Ed (Jon Voight) why he accompanies him on these adventure trips, it's a good question. Why does anyone go on wilderness excursions with anybody? Exercise and scenery are the two reasons I typically cite. Other people might say that they just want to get away from the city. The whitewater canoe trip that Lewis takes Ed and fellow Georgia urbanites Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Drew (Ronny Cox) on, however, is a distinctly different beast. When Lewis insists on driving recklessly, challenging treacherous rapids, and bringing along a bow and arrow, it's as though he enjoys courting disaster. "I never been insured in my life," he explains. "There's no risk."
- Based on the novel by James Dickey, John Boorman's Deliverance is a film that appreciates the fundamental absurdity behind seeking out such risks. It is also one of the great "rural horror stories," exploiting city folks' fears of the untamed wilderness and the mysterious country dwellers who inhabit it. This strange otherness is best exemplified by the film's famous and yet still immensely powerful "dueling banjos" scene that takes place early on between Drew and a unnamed boy (Billy Redden). While modern audiences might immediately think of autism when they see a gifted musical prodigy who doesn't make eye contact or speak, the film uses him instead as a way of illustrating that, even when they're making the same music, the city and country types aren't communicating at all. This idea is further reinforced when Lewis quotes Sir Edmund Hillary in justifying his desire to canoe the river. A local responds, "It's there, all right. You get in there and can't get out, you gonna wish it wasn't."
- Finally, the four men reach the river. Things go well at first. There's a lot of joking around the campfire and some fun adventures on the rapids. The next day, the trip takes a turn for the worse. In a scene that has prompted nervous jokes on probably every canoe trip in the last forty years, Ed and Bobby run into some rough-looking and ill-intentioned locals (Bill McKinney and Herbert "Cowboy" Coward) in an isolated section of woods. At this point, one must simply marvel at the fact that this was Ned Beatty's film debut. Just four years later, Beatty would be nominated for an Academy Award for his Olympian take on broadcasting executives, but in this film he's famous for being made to "squeal like a pig." It's a grotesque and terrifying scene that is no less shocking because of its familiarity.
- With its lush rural Georgia and South Carolina location filming, its talented stable of actors, both trained and untrained, and its amazing whitewater stunts (apparently the production was so dangerous that it went uninsured), Deliverance is probably the most impressive "backcountry suspense" film ever made. It is also a textbook example of what should probably be referred to as The Twilight Zone method of ironic punishment in which the most cautious and respectable fellow is the first to die, the most crude has the most depraved thing happen to him, the survivalist gets injured, and the nervous archer...well, he finally gets a shot off. In a film filled with deeply disturbing situations, some of the most disquieting moments occur long after the men have exited the river. It's only then that the remaining adventurers learn that their journey is still far from over. That innocent trip down the river will haunt them, and the film's audience, for the rest of their lives.
- James Dickey also cameos as a sheriff.
- And how did Boorman follow up this masterpiece? With Zardoz!
