The gorgeous backdrop of the film makes the violence and darkness even more disturbing - but this is more than just a horror film. There's real substance in themes, performances and John Boorman's superb direction.
100
Slant MagazineJeremiah Kipp
Slant MagazineJeremiah Kipp
Dickey taps into that stark mortal terror of abandoning control, where to become a wild man is somehow a form of connection.
For all the furious excitement of its river-rafting sequences, and the harshness and humiliation of its explosive central rape scene, Deliverance is an elegiac movie, mourning the rural mountain culture soon to be inundated by a new hydro-electric dam.
91
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Deliverance is a film about finding the place where ideas mean less than instinct.
Each of the four lead performances is exceptional, none more so than Burt Reynolds' beefy, supercilious Lewis.
90
Time Out
Time Out
A haunting, nightmarish vision.
89
Austin Chronicle
Austin Chronicle
To this day, Dueling Banjoes still gives me the willies.
80
TV Guide Magazine
TV Guide Magazine
Morose, shockingly violent yet strangely beautiful, Deliverance is a tale of what happens to civilized values when put to the test in a hostile wilderness environment.
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds and, indeed, all the members of the cast are finely tuned and very good. What the movie totally fails at, however, is its attempt to make some kind of significant statement about its action.
In the depiction of sudden, violent death, there is the rhapsodic wallowing in the deadly beauty of it all: protruding arrows, agonizing expiration, etc. 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.