Deliverance

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Videodisc release of the 1972 motion picture.
Includes behind-the-scenes documentary: The dangerous world of Deliverance.
Widescreen and full screen versions ; remastered in Dolby digital 5.1 ; interactive menus, production notes, theatrical trailer, scene access.
Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox.
Four ordinary men, in two canoes, descending a river they've only seen as a squiggly line on a map, determined to test themselves against a wilderness they only think they understand, must fight for their lives against some sadistic mountain men.
DVD.
Contents: Deliverance.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Backwoods Lord of the Flies submitted by pkooger on May 9, 2012, 9:57am Most of us have some idea of one or two things that take place in Deliverance. One particular scene is burned into the cultural landscape. I decided to watch Deliverance and see for myself what the film is actually about. Here's what I got out of it. Four men decide that they are going to conquer the wilderness, so they take off on a canoe trip without being particularly prepared for it. Lewis, the leader, seems to embody the mentality that "Real Men" don't need or make plans. Preparation is weakness. One suspects that for all his outdoorsy manliness, he was never a Boy Scout. To be fair, it's hard to prepare for a completely random and senseless attack from some crazy people. Much violence ensues. Man turns on man. People die. Lives are wrecked. You get the feeling that there is a pig's head stuck on a stick just out of view of the camera. Civilization's veneer is pulled away to reveal that we are all just animals struggling for survival. Or something. Really if the two psychopaths hadn't attacked them, everything would have been fine. This film is very tense. It's beautifully shot and the characters are interesting. It's a good psychological thriller, but I'm not sure there is a thematic message that holds up to scrutiny. Read the book and let me know.

Deliverance submitted by a2sue on July 23, 2017, 5:27am All I've got to say about Deliverance is that this film is messed up!!

Four city friends go camping submitted by ccrose on August 31, 2019, 10:15pm This film shook the movie industry. The malevolent environment was coming from its citizens. Played as backwoods, yellowed teeth, gun toting. It was stereotyping but it was terrifying what happened to the four men.
Burt Reynolds chose to do his own stunt that involved going over a falls in a canoe. He admitted later he nearly died.
The ending involves these men dragging back to their cars, looking at each other. What do we tell our wives?
We don’t. Ever.
A shocking ending. None of them ever believed things could have gone so wrong.
Lasting images from years ago. Powerful stuff.

Not its fault that it's become a parody of itself submitted by lisa on June 10, 2022, 11:22am Still, I'm not sure it holds up so well in the face of its own cultural aftermath as do other touchpoint films, like Gone with the Wind or Casablanca or even later-era novel moments, e.g., Groundhog Day, The Godfather(s), Jaws, Indiana Jones. Maybe Titanic suffers the same fate: our cultural impression/reduction of it carries as much as the film, making the viewing of it add little, or maybe even seem like a waste of time.