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Deliverance Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 40 Reviews)

All plot
If you aren't from the southern US, and familiar with mountain culture, you'll miss some of this. It is not about the evil in mountain men, either. It is about what happens when events lead down an irretrievable path, and man is caught in them, like in a spider web. Thus, it is all plot. And that what happens to these men, while not of their own making, can and may result in their destruction.

Thus, it is mysterious. And, as such, perhaps the greatest movie about men made in the last thirty to forty years.

Coulda Done Better
Considering the story, the backdrop, and the actors, the movie makers could have done a lot more with this story. It's kind of an inbreds vs. the modern man thing, or nature vs. man. Man can only do so much to control or destroy nature, without it coming back with a vengance. Man can only do so much without the civilizing effect of the law which some mountain people don't seem to care for. It's a tale of survival, group survival when the cards are stacked against them. Good material for a movie, yet they don't pull it off here.
This movie is simply too slow and the dialogue is flat. It takes about half the movie for the real action to begin. When the action does begin, it doesn't sustain itself, the tension does not build. You end up wondering why these things are happening. There is no real climax and the conclusion leaves you hanging in no man's land. Not recommended.

The Test of Time
I saw this a long time ago, but I didn't realize how good it was. Four fully-realized characters go on a canoe trip and get in over their heads.

Great images that stay with you (The church on wheels, the banjo boy, the hand in the water, the graveyard at the end...) Great soundtrack, even when they're using synthesizers to complement the guitar and banjo. Boorman knows how to use music. Great performances--even by Burt Reynolds. Beautiful scenery. Great pacing.

The Ronny Cox character is in some ways the most sympathetic--he doesn't condescend to the locals--and the most ethical. These are not necessarily qualities that will keep you alive in a survival situation.

Wonderful how different aspects of their personalities are revealed under stress.

I agree with one reviewer's comment that this gives a worse-than-unflattering view of the locals, but it seems a huge exaggeration to say that the film has had much of a social impact one way or the other. And some of the locals are shown to be quite ordinary and decent.

Me-Fa-|So-Me-Fa-Re-Me-Do-Re.

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