Deliverance

Over the years there have been a lot of survivalist kind movies, people put in situations that go completely out of control, most only scratch the surface of the reality of those situations. But here the control is kept out of the reach of the four main characters and they never truly gain it, they have to change with each situation until they don't resemble the same men who started the trip. The director here is John Boorman, who did the film Excalibur, and you can see the attention to detail every where, nothing that you see in the movie is beyond the possibility of physically being done which only makes the movie even better. Four men go a canoe trip down the Cahulawassee River before the new dam being built floods it, and find that any adventure comes with a high price. This film was entirely shot on location along the Chattooga River in Georgia and the scenery is breathtaking, in some spots along the river it looks like no one had ever stepped there at all. Once the trip starts the tension is so thick that you wonder if they are going to survive at all, but as each man is transformed the group gets tighter and the bonds between them get stronger. The action is set up very well everything that happens is believable and well within the relm of possibility.
This is a classic in the true sense of the word; it has all the elements that make a movie enjoyable and re-watchable. I've watched this film countless times over the years and to this day every time I watch it I learn or see something new. After watching a biography about Burt Reynolds I learned that this was his first commercial success and his career skyrocketed from here. I also learned that there are a lot of people who have never seen this film, most people know about it and some even think they've seen it but can't really say one way or the other and then there are the ones that just don't want to watch it because of the subject matter of rape. But it is one of those movies that after you've seen it you start to think if you would have been able to survive if put in the same situations.