Deliverance  

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Deliverance is a 1972 American psychological thriller film directed by John Boorman. Principal cast members include Burt Reynolds, Ronny Cox, Jon Voight, and, in his film debut, Ned Beatty. The film is based on a 1970 novel of the same name by American author James Dickey, who has a small role in the film as a Sheriff.

Plot

Four Atlanta men — Lewis, Ed, Bobby, and Drew — (played by Reynolds, Voight, Beatty and Cox, respectively) decide to canoe down the fictional Cahulawassee River in the remote Georgia wilderness, expecting to have fun and see the glory of nature before the river valley is flooded over by the upcoming construction of a dam and lake. The trip turns into a terrifying ordeal revealing the primal nature of man, his animal instincts of predation and survival, and even his potential for violence.

Traveling in pairs, the foursome's two canoes are briefly separated. The occupants of one canoe (Bobby and Ed) encounter a pair of grizzled mountain men emerging from woods, one wielding a loaded shotgun. In what remains one of the most disturbing scenes in film history, Bobby (played by Beatty) is forced at gunpoint to strip naked, his ear twisted to bring him to his hands and knees, and then ordered to "squeal like a pig" as the mountain man sodomizes him, while Ed is bound to a tree and held at gunpoint by the other man.

Hearing the commotion, Lewis — who is wary of danger in the woods — secretly sneaks up, and kills the rapist with an arrow from his compound bow; meanwhile the other mountain man quickly escapes into the woods. After a brief but hotheaded debate between Lewis and Drew about whether to inform the authorities, the men vote to side with Lewis' recommendation to bury the dead mountain man's body and continue on as if nothing had happened — since Lewis said that they wouldn't receive a fair trial, as the local jury would be composed of the dead man's friends and relatives; likewise, Bobby doesn't want what had happened to him to be known. The four make a run for it downriver, cutting their trip short, but soon disaster strikes as the canoes reach a dangerous stretch of rapids. As Drew and Ed reach the rapids in the lead canoe, Drew clutches his head and falls forward into the river. The reason for Drew's fall is left unclear: Drew was either shot and killed by the surviving mountain man, or he lost his balance and fell from the canoe in the heavy rapids.

After Drew disappears into the river, both canoes collide on the rocks, spilling Lewis, Bobby and Ed into the river. Lewis breaks his femur and the others are washed ashore alongside him. Encouraged by the badly-injured Lewis, who believes they are being stalked by the other mountain man, Ed climbs a nearby rock face in order to dispatch the suspected shooter using his bow while Bobby stays behind to look after Lewis. Ed reaches the top and hides out until the next morning, when the other mountain man appears on the top of the cliff with a rifle, looking down into the gorge where Lewis and Bobby are located. Ed, who in a scene earlier in the film had been psychologically unable to shoot a deer he was tracking, starts to freeze again in spite of his clear shot. As the mountain man notices Ed and raises his rifle to fire, Ed clumsily releases his arrow as the mountain mans bullet slams into the rock just next to him, he falls down in panic and accidentally stabs himself with one of his own spare arrows. The mountain man, at first seemingly unaffected and still a threat, now staggers and collapses. Eds arrow had flown true after all. Ed checks the body and sees he is dead. He looks carefully at the dead man, it is clear that he isn't sure if the man he's killed is the same man who got away. Ed and Bobby weigh down the dead mountain man with stones and drop him into the river. Later they come upon Drew's corpse and they also weigh down and sink Drew's body in the river to ensure it will never be found. When they finally reach their destination, Aintry (which will soon be submerged by the dammed river), they take the injured Lewis to the hospital. The three carefully concoct a cover story for the authorities about Drew's death and disappearance being an accident, lying about their ordeal to Sheriff Bullard (played by author James Dickey) in order to escape a possible double murder charge. The sheriff clearly doesn't believe them, but has no evidence to arrest them on and after thinking it over he simply tells the men, "Don't ever do anything like this again... I kinda like to see this town die peaceful." They readily agree. The three vow to keep their story a secret for the rest of their lives, which proves to be psychologically burdensome for Ed. In the final scene, Ed awakes screaming from a nightmare in which a man's hand rises from the lake.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Deliverance" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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