The River Wild

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The River Wild

theatrical poster
Directed by Curtis Hanson
Produced by David Foster
Lawrence Turman
Written by Denis O'Neill
Starring Meryl Streep
Kevin Bacon
David Strathairn
John C. Reilly
Joseph Mazzello
Music by Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography Robert Elswit
Editing by David Brenner
Joe Hutshing
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date(s) 30 September 1994 (USA)
24 February 1995 (UK)
Running time 108 min.
Language English,American Sign Language
Budget $45,000,000
IMDb profile

The River Wild is a 1994 American thriller film directed by Curtis Hanson and starring Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, David Strathairn, John C. Reilly, and Joseph Mazzello. The story involves a family on a whitewater rafting trip who encounter two violent criminals in the wilderness.

Contents

[edit] Cast

[edit] Summary

A family, Gail (Streep), Tom (Strathairn), and their child Rourke (Mazzello), decide to take a holiday rafting down a river. As they are setting off they meet a couple of other rafters; Wade (Bacon) and Terry (Reilly), who appear to be two fun loving guys. Rourke takes a shining to Wade who in turn makes moves on Gail much to Tom's annoyance.

During the first day's rafting Wade and Terry show their inexperience by flipping their raft on a rapid. They are saved by the family, in particular Tom who dives into the river to save Wade who was drowning.

After a day's rafting the family make camp for the night and are joined by Wade and Terry who join with the family in celebrating Rourke's birthday. Wade gives Rourke $200 as a present, dwarfing the presents given by his parents. Tom refuses the gift and during the night a number of incidents including Wade looking at Gail while she is taking a bath in the river makes the family more and more suspicious of Wade and Terry.

In the morning the guys invite Rourke onto their raft and before the parents can stop him they have set off. During the morning's rafting Wade reveals to Rourke that they have a gun with them; something they ask him not to tell his parents. As they raft down the river the parents discuss an exit strategy that will allow them to leave the two guys behind and at lunch they attempt to leave on their raft and get away before the two guys realize, however they are not quick enough and are stopped by Wade who reveals the gun and ties the family up.

Gail then realizes that an armed robbery she had heard about was actually carried out by the guys and their rafting trip is actually a way for them to get away.

The family are forced to raft at gunpoint down the rest of the river before they all set up camp for the night. During the night Tom attempts to steal the gun off the sleeping Terry but is heard and has to run into the bushes and to the river. Wade gives chase and believes he has shot him when he hears a loud splash into the water.

Gail and Rourke raft with the two guys down the river. It's revealed that Wade and Terry, in order to aide their escape, want to go on down the river to a set of rapids where in recent years a person died, the other left paralysed and consequently rafting is no longer allowed.

Wade and Terry force the rafters down through the rapids despite Gail's repeated attempts to flip the raft and so force the two guys out of the river.

Tom reappears (showing he survived the earlier fight) and manages to construct a scheme to flip the raft which ends up working. Gail and Rourke who have been tied to the raft by Wade remain in the raft and manage to get hold of the gun which has fallen to the floor whilst Tom is fighting Terry. The struggle ends when Gail throws the bag of money into the water and shoots Wade whose dead body floats off down river. The film ends with the family and Terry (having been arrested) being helicoptered out.

[edit] Awards

[edit] Trivia

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  • Many of the film's whitewater scenes were filmed on the Kootenai River In Montana. Additional scenes were filmed on the Rogue River, in Southern Oregon and the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.
  • Meryl Streep did most of her own stunts.
  • An exhausted Meryl Streep balked when director Curtis Hanson asked her to shoot one more scene before filming finished for the end of the day, however, she decided to attempt it. Swept off the raft, she was in real danger of drowning before she was rescued. Returning upriver, she told a pale and shaking Hanson that "in the future, when I say I can't do something, I think we should believe me." Hanson hastily agreed.[1]
  • Benjamin Brat later co-starred with Kevin Bacon in the film the Woodsman (2004)

[edit] References

  1. ^ The River Wild (1994) - Trivia

[edit] External links