Parents' Guide to River Wild

The best part of this thriller is its brevity, how fast it gets going, and how quickly it reaches its conclusion. But there isn't much depth to River Wild and particularly to its characters, the survivors (Leighton Meester's Joey, Taran Killam's Gray) or the villain (Adam Brody's Trevor). There's also little to say about its messages, as this film clearly isn't in the business of trying to say anything. It's a quick little thriller featuring a no-bones-about-it tattooed "bad guy" out of prison who took sexual advantage of one of the main characters when she was a teenager. The survivors are at least trying to leave difficult past lives behind (drug dealing and a toxic relationship), but beyond the imperatives of "do your best to survive a murderous villain" and "try to survive the dangerous natural elements of rushing rapids," this film has the minimum modicum of thrills: a few chase scenes, some murder, fighting, gunshots and wounds, and that moment when the victims think they might be saved only to see that moment disappear.

The original film (The River Wild) that this reimagining reimagines has more depth, stronger characters, performances (Meryl Streep, David Strathairn, Kevin Bacon, and John C. Reilly), writing, depth, drama, and power, and its cinematography is beautifully crafted. This pseudo-remake, in comparison, is visually a bit muddled, with many scenes shot at night, which makes half of the action occur in the very dark. When the action does take place in the daytime, the sequences can seem barer, which reveals logical problems more immediately, like when a character just has to go back in the direction of the man with the gun (instead of continuing to run away) or when a smaller woman easily pulls a much bigger man (who has also been shot in the stomach and is bleeding out) up and over some rocks and out of rushing rapids going in the other direction.