(2 of 2)
The script by Boorman and Dickey (who does nicely in the role of a small town sheriff) strays occasionally on the side of overemphasis. But an unrelenting pulse of suspense propels the film over these obstacles.
Each of the four lead performances is exceptional, none more so than Burt Reynolds' beefy, supercilious Lewis.
Much of the effect of the movie rests finally on Jon Voight's Ed. Initially withdrawn and uncertain, the characterization takes on strength and clarity as Ed becomes more crucial to the story. Voight captures Ed's turmoil, his spiritual and physical agonies, in a way that confirms his standing as one of our finest young actors.
Voight's performance also crystallizes the most dubious aspect of the movie. Is Ed really any more of a man for enduring and surviving as he does?
Is he really more in touch with his own dark spirituality? Here, as in Sam Peckinpah's recent Straw Dogs — another, artistically less successful movie about a test — the director's prodigious skill cannot conceal a rather shabby and cynical intellectual construct. In Deliver ance, man must become one with na ture in order to survive. But for Boorman and Dickey, becoming one apparently means becoming bestial. Deliverance comes not through a knowledge of nature's most primitive and powerful forces but through a capitulation to them.