Review of The River Wild (1994) by Shane D — 22 May 2010

There are so many movies out there in the big bad world of cinemaâ??s history, youâ??d be hard pressed to ever be sat down and think, Iâ??d like to watch Meryl Streep in â??The River Wildâ??. Then one day, you find yourself on the couch, you inadvertently sit through the first 20 minutes and before you know it, youâ??ve committed to seeing the whole thing through.

Thatâ??s both an insight to my laziness at the time, but also points to the fact that while this film is chock full of cliché, its almost not a bad little B-grade thriller. Streep is pretty strong in this and Bacon is doing his typical thing, which is confusing the viewerâ??s opinion of him (is he a good actor / is he a bad actor).

I couldnâ??t get past one major plot hole though, the husband is discarded, assumed dead, but instead, he is able to scale the mountains and arrive at the destination the bad guys claim can only be reached by traversing the killer white water.

Not only does he use land to arrive at the destination central to the story, he BEATS the boat there, with enough time to set up an elaborate booby trap. That sort of killed it for me. File under the category of â??Films destined for obscurityâ??.