Deliverance

"Morose, shockingly violent yet strangely beautiful."

"So many of Dickey's lumpy narrative ideas remain in his screenplay that John Boorman's screen version becomes a lot less interesting than it has any right to be."

"(Deliverance) has a beautiful visual style that balances the film's machismo message."

"Each of the four lead performances is exceptional, none more so than Burt Reynolds' beefy, supercilious Lewis."

"This gripping drama was a controversial release back in the early 70s, and its distressing intensity hasn't really diminished in the decades since."

"The movie casts a spell through images both ugly and beautiful..."

"It's the stuff of which slapdash oaters and crime programmers are made but the obvious ambitions of Deliverance are supposed to be on a higher plane."

"It's a haunting, nightmarish vision."

"A fantasy about violence, not a realistic consideration of it."

"There's real substance in themes, performances and John Boorman's superb direction."