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Tom, Jerry (!), Billy and Dan are four young kids who fantasise about going on a treasure hunting adventure in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. A legendary rascal called D B Cooper has botched a million dollar heist and left the money in the mountains. The kids make a pact that some day, somehow, they will find that money. Years later, Billy is killed in an accident and the rest reunite for his funeral.

Tom (Dax Shepard) is now a sleaze, who cannot hold a steady job to save himself. Jerry (Matthew Lillard) is bored to death in a dull office and by a nagging girlfriend and Dan (Seth Green) has become a very wimpy doctor. Their childhood sense of curiosity and adventure has been extinguished. That is until they happen upon D B Cooper's treasure map in their old tree house gang hut.

Desperate for one last act of stupidity before acknowledging their thirties, the trio sets off on a rafting/camping trip, with D B's treasure as their ultimate goal. Of course, many obstacles and disasters prevent them from getting there so easily. Sounds like a grown-up Goonies? It is. And it's loads of fun.

Without A Paddle is funny and exciting, with non-stop action and set pieces. Great widescreen photography, pretty scenery and a particularly gentle score make for perfect escapism. There is not one second of boredom. Shepard, Green and Lillard (as always) are brilliant together. Chemistry is difficult to conjure up with three main characters, but they pull it off perfectly.

As an Indiana Jones-lite coming-of-age comedy, with the tiniest bit of character drama, Without A Paddle succeeds in every area. But not really a film you would want to watch again.

This PG 13 comedy has been greatly maligned by some big time critics, the New York Times and other's. I think the main irritation is the homosexual eroticism, a joke if you will about Deliverance style banjo boys and close quarter survival in the nude. Some may be offended, sensitive gay's, little old Grandmothers, and redneck tobacco sputters. I assure you; however, this is a funny movie. City Slickers 1 and 2 covered this ground once before, but frankly, I liked Without a Paddle more. It's sentimental for all the right reasons. The boys truly love each other and when they become twenty something's, they retain some of their boyish quirks, each with a flaw, the short, picked-on boy grows up to be the short picked on doctor. You get the idea.

The Cascade Mountains both real and simulated is a beautiful green backdrop to the slapstick antics of angry bears and pot growing dummies. The tree girls are a breakdown and laugh idea. Their defense of a tree is brown bag humor, but gee, that hits a visceral laugh note in even the stuffiest fool.

What sounds like your average, everyday sort of male bonding roadtrip film is essentially...well, just that, in fact. Three childhood friends (Seth Green, Matthew Lilard, Dax Sheppard) reunite at a friend's funeral, and go off on a camping trip downstream to try and find the lost treasure they always dreamed of finding in their youth in his honour. They promptly and predictably fall into all sorts of mishaps in the wild and really give a bad reputation to man's survival ethic.

This kind of comedy is always somewhat stifled when a life lesson is included: in the case of Without a paddle the message is 'Appreciate the life you have...you never know how long it will last'. Unfortunately, we go to a film like this to be entertained, not for morals, and its inclusion merely deters from the fun.

The three leads are what make the film decently funny: Seth Green is excellent as he begrudgingly reveals his various phobias from everything from the dark to ceran wrap. ('I'm afraid it might get stuck over my head, it's very sticky) Matthew Lilard puts his wide range of comic facial expressions to good use, and Dax Shepard is always a source of laughs as the tough-guy slacker of the group.

The comedic material is mostly original stuff, but there's nothing outstanding to be seen, apart from a few memorable moments. (one finds Dax Shepard riding his motorcycle into the graveyard at the burial of his friend, and bellowing out to the funeral attendees 'Where did you guys park?') The inclusion of Burt Reynolds' crazy mountain man is a comedic plus, but the nature loving hippy-girls and uncouth drug traffickers which pop up periodically aren't as funny as they should be. In fact, such can be said for the entire movie.

The odd laugh will definitely turn up, but there are many better comedies around, so unless you're simply up for an evening of mostly forgettable fun, you might want to leave Without a Paddle wallowing in the shallows.

6.5/10

The film talks about a trio friends(Seth Green,Dax Shepard,Matthew Lillard),later the death a childhood's friend ,they propose the making a hick by canoe into woods of Oregon territory.Their aim is the looking for of D.B Cooper bounty for carrying out the promise they made when were little boys .Cooper was a mythic high-jacker(nowadays famous by character played by Muse Watson in ¨Prison Break¨)who jumped from the airplane(1971) and parachuted,disappearing posteriorly,although his bounty was partially found.The misfit group fulfill a canoeing along the Columbia river where find numerous risks,rapid streams,waterfalls and get worse, besides in the surface encounters dangerous animals like a bear and a drug-cultivating rednecks.But also they know a beautiful girls(Rachel Blanchard and Christina Moore) living on a tree and an older mountain man(Burt Reynolds).

The picture mingles comedy,adventures,action,cynical sense of humor and is pretty bemusing.It's a crossover among ¨Deliverance¨even with the presence of Burt Reynolds and ¨City slickers¨as a Philadelphia young people who are going to countryside excursion.The movie displays several ingredients for the entertaining as glimmer outdoors,stirring canoeing,sexy-girls and thrilling pursuits.The humor is intelligent and bold though sometimes is gross-out.Most of the laughters and sight gags galore work acceptably,especially the jokes between the three friends,as when they flee of the dangerous rednecks and dropped underwater or when the damp trio sleep gather together.Wonderful landscapes are splendidly reflected by the cameraman Jonathan Brown and appropriate musical score by Christophe Beck.The motion picture is professionally directed by Steven Brill. Rating : Passable and amusing.

The whole rating system is kind of skewed. Some people rated this film low because it wasn't Larwrence of Arabia but then it wasn't meant to be. It's like comparing actors when they play different roles. You can only really compare them playing the same role.

Anyway I went to the film expecting a goofy stoner type of mindless entertainment. Just a laugh. But I was pleasantly surprised that not only was it funny but some deeper thought had gone into it. The plot was more substantial than I expected, there were bits of philosophy sprinkled throughout which accentuated the positive side of life, and the cast was pretty good too. I'm not sure what inspired Burt Reynolds to play his character but he did it well as did all of the players.

But mainly the movie was funnier than hell. I almost embarrassed myself I laughed so hard during the first bear sequence. The image of Mott saying 'help' as he looked back while being carried off had me laughing way too high way too long but it and some other scenes were hilarious and I couldn't help it then either.

All in all a good film for the genre. And surprisingly while I think it appeals to the stoner crowd it's cool in that it incorporates it without promoting it though it doesn't avoid it either. In fact I was struck by the fact that the bad guys were red neck smokers and the good guys were dopey beer drinkers but apparently nothing more.

Lastly the film cleverly pays homage to other films throughout. Deliverance, The Matrix, and others are covered and probably a few I missed.