Review of Sadgati (1981) by Steve H — 17 Oct 2010

And then there was that one time we went rafting up in Appalachia...

John Boorman's 70's classic, adapted from James Dickey's novel, still has the bite it had when it first came out, thanks in no small part to the brilliant location photography of Vilmos Zsigmond, which richly captures the beauty and menace required of a film about Man vs. Nature.

Set in the backwoods of the Appalachian mountains in Georgia, where blasting companies are ready to flood hundreds of miles of land for electricity and power purposes, four Atlanta businessmen set out on a rafting trip of a lifetime, but what starts out as a bro-mantic bonding trip, tuns into a nightmare when a couple of mountain men disrupt the experience. The ensuing battle, kill-or-be-killed, tests the moral and ethical fabric of the men, kicking in natural survival instincts that one usually never has to summon in a normal lifetime.

Boorman's taut direction lends excitement to the already tense situation, especially as the men float quietly down the river, the rapids physically and symbolically around the bend, and the cast, including Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds, are equally ready for Dickey's devastating deconstruction of base human actions and nature's intrinsic fury.