Fleapit revisited:Deliverance.

"Sometimes you have to lose yourself before you find anything" - Lewis Medlock.

"Squeal like a pig", "he got a real pretty mouth", Dueling Banjos. These are things you probably think of when you think of John Boorman's 1972 southern gothic movie Deliverance (shown recently on BBC2 and still, for a couple more days, available on the iPlayer) and, to be fair, they are some of the most dynamic moments of the film - but they are not the whole film.

What the whole film is is hard to tell. Is Boorman, a Brit, being rude about people in the Deep South? Is he making a point about the patronising attitudes of urban folk? Is it a story about how city dwellers underestimate nature (and those that live in it)? Is it parable about man's hubris? Or is it just a good old fashioned thriller and I'm reading way too much into it?

Four Atlanta businessmen are heading to the Cahulawassee river (actually the Chattooga, a tributry of the Tugaloo which is, itself, a tributary of the Savannah) in northern Georgia with a plan to canoe down it before it is damned for eternity. It's very beautiful out there but, inevitably, it's very dangerous too.

Lewis (Burt Reynolds) doesn't worry about the danger. He's a risk taker, an alpha male who smokes cigars, spears fish, and sets himself up as the leader of the group. Ed (Jon Voight) has joined Lewis on adventures before - even if he doubts his own wisdom in doing so - but is more circumspect when it comes to making major decisions. He's a pipe smoker. Both actually and metaphorically.

Bobby (Ned Beatty) and Drew (Ronny Cox) are novices. Law abiding Drew likes nothing more than to play his guitar and Bobby, whom Lewis calls Chubby - he's a little more rotund than the others, is really not the outdoors type in any way. It seems inevitable that he will either regret his decision to join the others on the trip or he'll end up the hero of the piece.

Maybe both. On arriving at a small town near the river, the foursome (particularly Lewis) manage to insult the locals. Locals who are already poverty stricken and highly suspicious of city slickers. When the Dueling  Banjos scene arrives, much earlier than I remembered, Lonnie the banjo boy (Billy Reddon) smiles with glee as he duets with Drew but refuses to shake his hand or even acknowledge him afterwards.

That's the least of their worries. A trip that starts off looking idyllic (and even fun if that's your bag) soon becomes far more treacherous and I don't just mean the white water rapids and the parasitical mosquitoes. Mountain men with guns ('Mountain Man' is played by Bill McKinney while Herbert 'Cowboy' Coward gets to play a character called 'Toothless Man'), being tied to trees, and those uncomfortable, unforgettable, scenes of a man squealing like a pig as he's anally raped.

This incident, understandably, changes the whole tone of the trip but it also drastically alters the dynamic of the group as one man's authority is questioned and others rise. It's not, however, the end of their problems. Further perils await. Some natural and some of their own making. Mostly a combination of the two. On more than one occasion you find yourself wondering if the Cahulawassee will become their watery grave.

It's a good yarn, exciting and tense in places with some fantastic hillbilly dancing on show, that reminded me a little of Ted Kotcheff's Wake In Fright which came out one year earlier. There are some vertigo inducing scenes and some that are unpleasant for very different reasons but, ultimately, I didn't find myself caring for, rooting for, or empathising with any of the characters. Maybe that's baked in with the southern gothic genre but I don't see why it should be. No doubt about it, Deliverance has earned its place in the pantheon but the caveat is it could, and should, have been even better. You better pray good.