Four men leave their wives and urban lives behind them for a weekend of canoeing down the swift waters of the Chattoga River in Georgia. Deliverance is an adventure story that transports us into a rugged struggle for survival in the mountains. It is also a moral parable about civilized men who are toughened and tried by the laws of the wilderness.
The award-winning poet behind the screenplay and the novel is James Dickey. A man who thrives on adventure and exploration, he has been a World War II fighter pilot, an advertising executive, and a teacher. The lyrical keenness of his moral vision and the fast-paced suspense of his novel have been translated to the screen by director John Boorman (Point Blank, Hell in the Pacific, The Tailor of Panama). Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond (The Crossing Guard, Life as a House) brilliantly captures the sinister quality of the mountain country and makes the menace of the river a felt terror rather than a picturesque pleasantry.
Lewis (Burt Reynolds), the sportsman leader of the foursome, sees the trip as a challenge to his survival abilities. He chides the others for their physical flabbiness and philosophizes that modern man must exercise his prowess against nature if he is to conquer the future: "I think the machines are going to fail, the political systems are going to fail and a few men are going to take to the hills and start over." Ironically enough, the untamed area they are bound for is about to be made into a dam.
The other three members of the party are less philosophical. In the beginning they are quite upended by their treatment at the hands of some gruff mountain men who must be bribed to drive the city slickers' cars down to the next town. But once in two canoes and on the water, they begin to catch the thrill of conquering the rapids and making it over rock-razored falls. Staking camp, Ed (Jon Voight), Bobby (Ned Beatty), and Drew (Ronny Cox) take their cues from Lewis. The next morning Ed rises early and goes with his bow-and-arrow into the woods. He spots a deer and aims but misses his target due to a bad case of the shakes. Embarrassed he returns to camp. Lewis — without a word — realizes his failure.
Leading the other two down the stream, Ed and Bobby have pulled their canoe to the shore when they are waylaid by two mountaineers. While one holds a gun on them, the other ties Ed to a tree. Then the mountain man sodomizes Bobby forcing him to kneel on all fours and squeal like a pig. The scene is one of absolute terror — an ungodly confrontation between city-slickers and primitive rednecks who live by the predatory laws of the wilderness. Before they can violate Ed, Lewis appears with Drew. He kills the rapist, shooting an arrow through his back. It is a gurgling dance of death as the other mountain man flees leaving his dying friend to slowly expire.
The men are now paralyzed with fright. Drew argues that they must report the death to the law. Lewis declares that in a trial by city-hating hicks, he could not receive a fair hearing. Ed and Bobby side with Lewis. They bury the body and go on.
But the nightmare of testing is not over. In a treacherous stretch of rapids, Drew falls out into the water and both canoes capsize. Lewis gashes his thigh and is incapacitated. Is the partner of the slain mountaineer pursuing them? Was Drew shot? The psychology of fear that now grips Ed and Bobby does not allow for answers. The peril of the situation forces Ed to seek out the gunman on the cliff. Mobilizing his animal instincts, he becomes hunter and killer. His ritual of survival culminates in the death of the gunman. Downstream they lie their way out of the two murders and return home as different men.
The film insinuates its way into your mind. It is not without flaws: the finale is forced and ineffective; Burt Reynolds is more an argument than a character; and the treatment of the mountain folk in the early sequences seems patronizing and stereotypical. Yet, in spite of these faults, the film is a first-rate example of what could be called a moral suspense story. Guilt, innocence, truth, deceit — these are inner explorations that make Deliverance more than an adventure story.