The thrill, excitement and danger of white-water rafting is
not seen much on the silver screen.
There are movies with small snippets but few where it plays an important
role. To be considered, the rafting
needs to be either a significant part of the film or crucial to the plot so
that would leave out most movies such as How
the West Was Won and others like it which only has small unimportant part
of the film dedicated to it. Once we
take that into account there are not many at all to choose from so it comes
down to three movies (there are two more being "Up the Creek" and "White Mile" with the former being more of a silly comedy and the latter based on a true story which I will look into and provide an update to this review if it is as good as these). Yep just
three movies (not talking documentaries here) where white-water rafting plays a
significant part of the film.
White Water Summer (1987)
Starring Kevin Bacon and Sean Astin, this is quite a good
movie with a typical 80’s soundtrack.
Kevin Bacon is a guide who takes small groups of kids to the wilderness
to make men out of them. The group in
the movie consists of two older kids and two younger, with Sean Astin being one
of the younger ones. Sean, who plays Alan,
is pressured to go by his father and as a result is kinda reluctant which Kevin
Bacon’s character (Vic) notices and pushes Alan to some extremes.
Contrary to the date above, the movie was filmed in 1985 but
Sean Astin’s character does some narration when reflecting as an older kid, so
to cater for that they filmed the narration about 2 years later, then released
the film in 1987.
It has some great scenes of rafting and mountain climbing
and to be honest is worth seeing both for the action/scenery and the movie
itself. Perhaps the weaker of the three
here, but still worth seeing.
The River Wild (1994)
With Maryl Streep, David Strathairn and, again, Kevin Bacon,
this movie is quite well known and has a lot of wilderness and white-water
rafting in it. The scenery is not as
breathtaking as White Water Summer, but it has more rafting in it and is a
decent thriller.
Gail (Meryl Streep) and Tom’s (David Strathairn) marriage
seems to be breaking down so Gail, a rafting guide in her younger years,
decides to take the family on a rafting trip in the wilderness in a hope to get
away from distractions and bring the family closer again. On their way they
meet up with a few fellow rafters who end up tagging along with them after
their guide mysteriously goes missing.
My take is that it is well worth seeing and is well paced
with a lot of tense moments both in the water and out. Interestingly, Meryl did most of her own
stunts in this film.
Deliverance (1972)
I have seen this movie a few times and apart from one scene,
it’s a real cracker. The acting is
great, scenery is great and the story gets you in then grabs you by the collar
and attempts to take you under water with its realistically portrayed horror as
the characters fight for survival.
Sadly, this movie is probably more known for one disturbing
scene which I will not discuss here apart from saying that its best forgotten,
yet it does become a turning point in the movie.
The four main actors, Burt Reynolds (Lewis), Jon Voight
(Ed), Ronny Cox (Drew) and first time on the big screen Ned Beatty (Bobby) get
together to take a paddle down a main river in Georgia before the area is
dammed up. It starts off pleasant enough
until they meet up with some of the unusual locals (many of the town folk in
the movie are actually from that area) and one of the town folk gets
killed. As the continue heading down the
river they realise they are being chased and hunted down and their weekend
turns into a horror as they fight to get out alive.
Interestingly, the four main actors did most of the own
stunts which adds to the realistic feel of the movie. This would be the best pick of the bunch when
the movie as a while is taken into account.
It has become a classic movie and apart from that one scene, it really
lives up to it. Great movie.
