Victoire sur la peur

This movie had potential, but unfortunately director's apathy, a mediocre script, and rushjob editing doomed this weak afterschool drama about boys coming of age in a campers' nightmare. Was it suppose to be funny? Who do we root for...Kevin Bacon as a drifting, needy, sex-deprived Vic, or a bunch of awkward Cub Scout rejects who all took the wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Kevin Bacon has produced finer results (Friday the 13th, Footloose, JFK), but every time I see "Hollowman" I'm always reminded of his twisted Vic character in White Water Summer. WWS did a stint on HBO a few years back, and that's where most people probably saw it. But it's usually eroding under a dripping air conditioner at your local flee market rent-a-flix. Did it ever show at a theatre?

The film: Vic wants to make men of boys, and yearns to school them the hard way...by assuming he is a higher order, and thinking he knows everything there is about wildlife, camping and adventure. There will be no knives, no radio, no weed and no softcore magazines on this journey. What is Vic's primary objective on this trip? It's clearly obvious that his only ambition is to traumatize the young, feeble minds of four teenage boys...and you can thank the parents for forking over their hard-earned dollars for the abuse.

What's so insane about WWS is that you can ALSO get the impression that Vic wants to make a positive impact on these kids' minds and souls. Sean Astin portrays Alan, a quiet, somewhat timid teenager who could've been picking his nose at any middle school in America. He's quite easy to relate to, and you can see clearly why he hates Vic. To Alan Vic is nothing more than your typical 30 year-old lowlife with no direction or purpose. Which is true.

If you want to know more about this oddball flick then just read the other comments by other users who cared more about this movie than I did. Oh yea, one more thing - the soundtrack isn't as great as some of you WWS fanatics make it out to be. Just your typical mid/late 80's "American Anthem-like" softrock. Nothing special or unique in there.

White Water Summer is one of my favorite movies from childhood. There are some parts of the movie that would not make sense in our working world, legalities, etc, but its still a great adventure movie!

The whole movie revolves around a young city boy, Who unwillingly agrees to go with "VIC" on an intense adventure camp out in the wilderness with some other boys. Being a city boy, he's usually the last one to get something done right, especially when in very dangerous and perhaps life threatening situations. He learns what he really is capable of, and is able to grow up in one summer, perhaps through a little too much harshness...

The sound track is great, unfortunately, no one made a sound track for purchasing!

'White Water Summer' is one of those movies that has enormous potential, but only mines the tip of it, making an often very enjoyable movie that could've been so much better. It is likely Kevin Bacon's least known major studio picture, and, had it received a respectable release, could have been very successful. But it didn't. It opened in only a handful of theaters (after two years on the shelf), and disappeared without a trace, grossing less than a third of a million dollars.

The plot is quite simple. Vic, a twentysomething year old with a love for the wilderness (Bacon- 'Flatliners', 'The Hollow Man') leads a group of four boys (age ranging from 14-17) for a month long trek into the untamed Sierra-Nevada mountain range. As time progresses he begins to stray from the group, and not properly look after the four. The three older boys, Chris, Mitch and George, ignore it, but the youngest, Alan, (Sean Astin- 'The Goonies' and the upcoming 'Lord of The Rings' trilogy) sees right through Vic. Vic begins to target Alan, leaving him hanging on the edge of a rock face, and worse.

My only complaint, even if it is rather trivial, is the helicopter shot ending the climax. It is so contrived that it risks taking the rest of the movie down with it, I have never seen three seconds of film so misplaced.

The direction and cinematography are both excellent. The mountain backdrop through much of the film is a spectacular sight, and every location shown is photographed beautifully. The director chose not to litter the film with cheap emotions, as is the case with 99% of movies with a child actor in the lead (Radio Flyer and Simon Birch come to mind).

Much of the original score is very good, but little of the rock music featured in every other scene works. Overall the acting is remarkable. Bacon shines in his role, which, despite being top billed, is nothing more than a supporting role. The movie belongs to Astin, who makes us care for his character, and hate Bacon's.

It's too bad the film isn't more widely known, as it is very good. Easy to recommend, easy to watch, not too memorable, but still well worth the rental.

7/10

This was a movie I had watched many times at my uncle's house during Easter or Thanksgiving family gatherings over the years...decades ago. So when I had seen that it was on demand for free on my TV today, I thought-"Why not?" As much as I like the movie, certain things just really bothered me about certain aspects of it. Even back then to this day. Kevin Bacon swears on his methods, yet is pretty reckless as a supposed mentor of the kids he takes on this trip. He teaches "Survival",yet punishes a great survival tactic (because he felt upstaged). Yes I understand the arguments of "teaching his way" and "listen to authority"...even his "don't destroy the wilderness" philosophy. For him to endanger the lives of these kids whose parents have trusted him just from a single slide-show of what they'll be going through is just irresponsible of them, and I don't know one single parent who would agree to such a thing.....but then we wouldn't have this movie now, would we? After many years of not seeing this,and seeing it one more time I have to say I still like it though. Definitely a good 80's flick to catch if you get a chance.

I just caught this movie on TV and I thought this movie was great. I liked how they had older Alan (Sean Astin) giving his little comments, they were great especially the egg part and the part where he says, "Over there is Attigawa. They flung him into the sky. He is enemy of the land. I think we'll take Alan's knife."

Sean Astin did really good playing a little wimp who eventually becomes the leader of them all. And Kevin Bacon did awesome too at playing a guy I couldn't stand and nearly turned the TV off because of him.

The music was just too.... I don't know. Maybe I would've liked the music better if I had been around in the eighties.

All in all, I gave it a 10/10.