Deliverance (1972)

Four men spend a weekend whitewater rafting in the deepest depths of Appalachia. They thought they would take it easy. They thought it would be fun. They were never the same again.

Deliverance is a film about fear, horror, survival, justice, retribution and remorse. A man's personal reckoning, in ways many people never thought of. It's also about a loss of innocence, one that many Americans felt during Vietnam and Watergate. A sense that you can never really trust your neighbor and never walk through life wistfully unaware of the evil that lurks in the most unsuspecting of places.

John Boorman, in real time, explores a camping trip from hell. Every last excruciating moment of it. The bare naked wilderness, surrounded by toothless, inbred hicks that want to do some very bad harm to innocent city folks. To those who know of that famous scene, you know better than to assume it represents the entirety of the film, but you also know that it's horrifying nature makes it impossible to think of this film without thinking of it. To those who don't know what I'm talking about, consider this your trigger warning.

John Boorman is a filmmaking realist. He chose Deliverance to represent a moment in cinema where the intimate fears of the average man can be screened for the first time. The fear of the uncivilized world, and how it can bring you face to face with death. Reynolds, Voight, Beatty.. acting perfection. I cant say enough good things. Deliverance is an all-time classic. The 70's at it's best.