Best White-Water Rafting movies

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.