Deliverance (2012)

This DVD is the 35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of the film. One of the great things about Deliverance is that, even though it is an adventure filmed in the 1970's, it has managed to not age like a 70's film. It is both depressing and edge-of-your-seat suspenseful at the same time. The four leads do a tremendous job of playing the parts of urban dwellers who want a weekend of adventure in the wilds of Georgia and wind up getting far more than they bargained for. It has much to say about what it takes to make a man uncivilized and whether or not there is a bit of savagery in all of us, despite how domesticated we may be in predictable situations. Past these observation I won't rehash the plot elements since just about everybody on earth knows the details, and if you don't I won't spoil it for you. The film is newly remastered and will have many special features which include:

Commentary by John Boorman Director Boorman discusses the adventures, the team, the controversy and everything it took to make Deliverance a classic film.

Deliverance: The Beginning Take a historical look at the novel and its adaptation to the screen.

Deliverance: The Journey Along from the early stages of filming to the creation of classic moments, such as the Dueling Banjos scene.

Deliverance: Betraying the River The making of one of the most controversial and ground-breaking sequences in film history.

Deliverance: Delivered A reflective look back on the completion of the film, its impact and how the idea for the shocking ending came to be.

The Dangerous World of Deliverance The original behind-the-scenes documentary on the difficult conditions and challenges of making this film. This is on the 2004 release also.

Theatrical Trailer

This information comes from a press release by Warner Home Video. I have the 2004 release of this DVD, and quite frankly it looks fine now. I guess the primary reason to upgrade would be for all the extra features and the commentary, which are all new with the exception of "The Dangerous World of Deliverance", which was on the 2004 version of the DVD.

Director John Boorman's exciting, brutal, brooding, explosive and violent masterpiece remains one of Hollywood's most intelligent takes on the complex, contradictory cultures of American manhood, otherwise the more familiar preserve of directors like Sam Peckinpah and Walter Hill. Based on James Dickey's novel, Deliverance roots itself assuredly in fascinating and provocative dualities: liberal modernity and backwoods barbarism; beauty and violence; kindness and cuelty; morality and pragmatism and, atmospherically, the existential and the visceral situating it a distinct cut above the average Hollywood action adventure output. Four suburban friends career-best performances from Reynolds, Voight, Beatty and Cox take one last alpha-male shot at canoeing the mighty Cahulawassee river just as it is set to be flooded literally and figuratively by the needs, culture and infastructure of the New South as it rolls unforgivingly through what's left of the countryside.Just as their own middle class tensions, arrogances and irritations begin to surface, they run courtesy of the hostile local population into a world much smaller(...). What starts out as an egoistic attempt to reclaim some element of American frontier manhood amidst the privileged, cosseted reality of an otherwise safely suburban life becomes a gripping struggle to survive the ravages of nature and (distinctly warped) nurture. Features what is probably the silver screen's most notorious male rape scene, an episode that slides so quickly and unsuspectingly from cautious negotiation to gruelling and humiliating cruelty that it still retains the power to shock and unsettle. Possibly did more than any other movie to forever demonise the poor-white population of the Appalachians, spawning a slew of inferior copycats as well as the opportunistic "hillbilly horror" sub-genre that persisted into the early 80s with such exploitation nonsense as Hillbilly Holocaust and Trapped. Walter Hill's differently brlliant Southern Comfort, Jonathan Mostow's efficient suspenser Breakdown and Curtis Hanson's The River Wild can be argued to be among Deliverance's more palatable latter-day spawn. (In the latter, Meryl Streep shows that otherwise meek women pushed to the limit can be just as primal given a reason and a river!) Deliverance is a superior film that harks back to the days when a thoughtful Hollywood film and a crowd-pleasing box office smash were more often than not one and the same thing.

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When it comes to fictional survival stories, few can approach the sheer grueling brutality of DELIVERANCE. Brilliantly adapted by James Dickey from his best-selling book and superbly directed by John Boorman (POINT BLANK, HOPE AND GLORY), this is a tremendous endeavor. So much so that horror writer Stephen King and Boorman's fellow director Stanley Kubrick both expressed a tremendous admiration of it.

As pretty much everyone knows, DELIVERANCE focuses on four Atlanta businessmen (Burt Reynolds, Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, Ronny Cox) who decide to take a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River in the Appalachian Mountains of northern Georgia before it is dammed up into a lake. It is apparent, however, that the local folk don't take kindly to these "city boys" messing around in their woods. And when Voight and Beatty are sexually assaulted at gunpoint by a pair of sadistic rednecks (Bill McKinney, Herbert "Cowboy" Coward), in the infamous "SQUEAL!!" segment, what began as a canoe trip explodes into a nightmare.

Much is made, and justifiably so, not only of the "SQUEAL" scene but also of the "Dueling Banjos" part, between Cox and a retarted mountain kid. But DELIVERANCE has much more to offer besides these moments. Like A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and STRAW DOGS, it offers a hard-hitting and unflinching look at Man's penchant for violent and (arguably) abhorrent behavior. The four leads are extremely good in their roles, and McKinney and Coward make for two of the more frightening and vicious villains in screen history. Dickey appears in the film's final reel as a local sheriff who, as he puts it would "kinda like to see this town die peaceful."

Shot totally on location, and featuring ominous cinematography from the legendary Vilmos Zsigmond, DELIVERANCE is a great and frightening piece--arguably a modern gothic horror film, certainly a great action film with an undercurrent as sinister as the Cahulawassee River itself. It is not to be missed,

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The American Heritage Dictionary online defines deliverance as the act of being delivered and to rescue from danger or bondage. The film Deliverance nominated for three Oscars (director, picture, and film editing) shows how a tragedy can change man. Made as V ietnam was ending and men returning home from war, themselves changed, the film seems an appropriate metaphor rather than mere exploitation.

Four friends from the city embark on a weekend canoe trip downriver that is surrounded by poverty stricken tough hillbilly types. Lewis (Burt Reynolds) is the dominant leader of the group. Ed (Jon Voight) is a family man who would seem to have grown up with Lewis and idolizes him. Ed is respected, passive, and is the type that would rather fit in then stand out. Bobby (Ned Beatty) is the heavyset insurance salesman who is the butt of the joke at times and would rather talk or joke his way out of confrontation. Bobby is not the laid back type; he is bothered when Lewis gives him a hard time but is submissive and would rather vent to Ed rather then confront Lewis. Drew is another leader he is independent and has a quite confidence and unlike, Bobby, he voices his opinion and stands his ground.

Something horrible happens to Bobby in the woods and Ed is forced to watch helpless, they are both saved by Lewis and Drew but neither will ever be the same again. Although Lewis rescues them from danger with his bow it is the horrific act and the acts to follow that free them from their bondage of fear. The scene in the hospital at the end when Ed angrily accuses Bobby about what he thinks he said to the police, at first brushes it off with a smile followed very quickly wish a push, Ed counters this by slamming Bobby against the wall and soon the men have their hands around each others throats and are starring eye to eye. Bobby, hands around Ed's throat, calmly and steady handed tells him he didn't say anything and Ed believes him. These are not the same men that entered those woods like the many that enter the jungle and the desert, they have changed.

THE BLU RAY Picture and sound weren't the best I have seen on blu ray but were good. If you have a blu ray player and own Deliverance I would stick with what you have. If your buying this for the first time I'd spent the extra dollar it is here on Amazon and get the blu ray.

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There were many times where I felt left out of a joke because, while I knew the source material, I did not know the context of "Squeal like a pig" or the sound of "Dueling Banjos". I finally sat down one Sunday afternoon with a copy of Deliverance just so I wouldn't feel so left out.

While I now understand all the little marks this film left on pop culture, it also brought on two unexpected reactions from me. #1)No matter how well you think you know yourself, you will only know your "true" self when put in unfamiliar situations. Sure, it is easy to say "Well, I would react this way if that happened!", truth is you don't know sqaut until someone puts you to the actual test.

#2)What happened to films like this? This movie, and most movies of the pre-1980's, were willing to spend time engrossing you. Let the camera linger for that extra second, let the visual truly sink in. Let the characters have a discussion about mundane, every day life....it let's you crawl into their head a little bit more, and makes the situations they are put into seem all that more real, and in this case, startling to you. Take any of today's movies like "Matrix" or "Swordfish" that rely so heavily on their pretty special effects, I felt no connection to the characters, no concern when something happens to them. Give me a movie like Deliverance, or any of it's other pre-1980's ilk, and I will be a happy camper!

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