La rivière sauvage

For a conventional Hollywood adventure story, THE RIVER WILD isn't bad at all. While it lacks the rawness of similarly-themed independent fare and the kind of twists and surprises you'd expect from the best this genre has to offer, it tells the story it sets out to tell with a large amount of success, mainly thanks to the lean script and no-nonsense pacing. Much of the action comes from a series of spectacular white-water rafting sequences in which the stunt team are really put through their paces. These mark the film's highlight. The human plot, involving a couple of hostage-takers, is less spectacular, but the film still gets by thanks to the calibre of the cast.

Meryl Streep, although a little too earnest in some places for my liking, takes plaudits as the outdoors expert who has to use her wits to survive both nature and the evils of mankind. Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly are fine as the no-good criminals, and Benjamin Bratt bags a nice little role as a good-guy ranger. Youngster Joe Mazzello is a more mature presence than in the previous year's JURASSIC PARK, and David Straithairn (THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM) gets to have some fun as the straight-laced father forced into becoming a hero. Okay, so you know the outcome from the outset (and in a 12-certificate family adventure nothing THAT bad is ever going to happen), but this is nonetheless a mildly entertaining little movie.

River Wild is not really great or thrilling, but it's very entertaining due to the good acting by the entire cast and the beautiful nature scenery. I thought the relationships between all the characters and how they gradually change was the most believable and interesting part. How Kevin Bacon's character first strikes a bonding with the son, in order to win Meryl Streep's trust, and how this friendly atmosphere slowly glides to threat was very realistic. The only really annoying scene was the last one, where one police officer asks the son "What did your father do?", to which he replies "My father saved our lives". What a heroic, pathetic conversation after having survived such a life-threatening nightmare! All in all, this movie is recommendable, but you shouldn't expect too much.

The teacher Gail Hartman (Meryl Streep) is facing problems with her marriage with her husband, the workaholic architect Tom Hartman (David Strathairn). On the birthday of their son Roarke (Joseph Mazzello), Gail decides to leave her daughter with her parents and take her family to raft down a wild river where she was a guide. On the departure, a young man named Wade (Kevin Bacon) befriends Roarke and leaves the place with his friends Terry (John C. Reilly) and Frank (William Lucking). Later the family encounters Wade and Terry, who do not have rafting experience, and Gail helps them to cross a whitewater. They get closer to the family and soon Gail and Tom learn a dark secret about Wade and Terry. What will they do to get rid of the men?

Twenty-three years after its release date, "The River Wild" is still a breathtaking film. The story is predictable and corny in some moments, but the action scenes are still impressive. The forty-five year-old Meryl Streep is athletic and looks younger and younger. Unfortunately the DVD does not have making of since the scenes of white-river rafting are amazing. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Rio Selvagem" ("The Wild River")

To celebrate her son Roarke's birthday and help build his relationship with his father (and her), Gail takes the family unit up to where she used to work as a river guide for a bit of white water rafting. Once there they meet another group heading down river and, when Wade and Terry lose their guide, Gail agrees to let them follow them in their own boat. However when Gail and Tom begin to feel uncomfortable with their guests they try to slip away unnoticed – only for Wade to pull a gun and insist that Gail will help them proceed downriver and cross the legendary Gauntlet.

I first watched this when it came out in the cinema and I remember enjoying it. However noticing it back on television recently I couldn't help but be a little uninterested in it and wondered if I had just false memories of how good it really had been and so decided to watch it again and see. After a slow opening the film gets down to business with the two boats getting together and gradually going to the conclusion that we know is coming but enjoy heading towards anyway. The film delivers its straightforward plot well in the early stages, using the father-figure conflict well (even if it ignores the heavy feminist subtext) to generate the tension, while the later stages is more of a simple hostage thriller sort of affair. This aspect is still quite enjoyable even if it is not as tight as it really needed to be and, as a non-rafter, I wasn't sure how intimidated I was meant to be by the load of water that was the gauntlet.

As a result, the film is a little talky but the cast are able to deal with it and it is really only the clunky, slow start that suffers as a result. I'm not a big fan of Meryl Streep and I didn't think she was totally fitted to the material given her but mostly her performance was natural enough to be convincing. Strathairn plays second fiddle to Streep but he is still enjoyable as he delivers an insecure character. With these two big names in the lead it would have been easy for them to dominate but it is Kevin Bacon that steals the film with a charismatic performance that he easily turns into menace – hardly his greatest performance but he makes more of it than others have in the past. Mazzello is a typical 'cute kid' American actor but he is good enough for this material and he is pretty good in the first half when he is given the material. Reilly and Bratt add some well-known faces to the mix but really neither has that much to do.

Overall this is not a great film but it is good enough to be worth seeing once. The action is not typical for this genre and the novelty value of it makes it seem more interesting. The film looks good and it is tense enough to do the job while the plot gets past the slow start to deliver an interesting set up and a solid enough series of set pieces with a good cast and director onboard (sorry!).

Meryl Streep gets a totally different kind of role in "The River Wild". She and her husband (David Strathairn) and son (Joseph Mazzello, of "Jurassic Park") go on a rafting trip and encounter some guys (Kevin Bacon and John C. Reilly) who turn out to be not what they seem.

The obvious similarity is "Deliverance", but I also detected a similarity to "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle", the way that Kevin Bacon's character turns the boy against the mother. I once did a boat trip down the Snake River, and some of the rapids here look like what I remember (although the movie may have exaggerated the rapids).

Overall, it's a pretty fun movie. A real jolt of nature, if I may say so. Also starring Benjamin Bratt. Director Curtis Hanson also directed "L.A. Confidential", "Wonder Boys" and "8 Mile".