This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Deliverance
Plot Overview
In the
Mississippi River valley during the horse & buggy days, a
homesteader sets out with his expecting wife for the aging
midwife leaving his young lad Albie Bright (Matthew Vipond)
with his younger sister Sarah (Kim Hauser) to watch over the place;
he'll check in on them, he promises, every morning. A gully washer
at night looses the house from her foundations floating it
downriver (“We're floating”) until it runs aground
(“We're in the middle of the river”) on an island. A
falling tree impales it in place. The setting is reminiscent of one
from a Meera Nair short story:
“This house is an island,” Vijay says one morning. “It is one circle inside two other circles.” … “The house is there, right? That is the first circle. Then there's the courtyard around it—that's the second circle. And then outside these two circles, there are the fields surrounding the house. They are the sea.” (80)
The inner circle is the house where the kids commandeer the upper story. Albie collects food from the kitchen downstairs, which had been put up, enough to tide them over for a little while. Sarah fashions a distress flag from a blanket to call attention to themselves from the search parties they figure their dad would have sent. Unfortunately, a hungry mountain lion has been trapped in an adjacent room from which it's trying to claw its way through the debris to get at them.
The kids block the lion and repair to
the second circle, the beach & bush, from which they pray for
deliverance. Albie retrieves a drowned goat from the strand, which
he takes and feeds to the lion as an offering. He tries to
negotiate a ride with two shady characters who show up in their
skiff but seem more interested in ill-acquired booty and/or
kidnapped captives. Sarah fancying herself a cat-whisperer
thinks she can parlay the well fed lion's gratitude into
a tow to the far shore.
The third
circle is the receding river. The pirates have a river barge out
there holding rescued animals and receiving ensnared humans. The
cougar was able to swim the stream transporting her two cubs
one at a time. Civilization is on the other side.
Ideology
“Cougar” is an excellent film to illustrate the buddy system. Left to mind the farm were Albie (“I'll take good care of the place”) and Sarah (“Me too.”) To Sarah her mom admonishes, “He'll be working hard and he'll want his meals hot.” To Albie it's, “Take care of your sister.” (Eccl. 4:9) “Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour.” With the two of them they can complete their chores and eat well, too (“Did you like it?”)
(Eccl. 4:10) “For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.” The boy and the girl have each other's backs during an attempted kidnapping. When the cougar growls at the kidnappers, it's every man for himself.
(Eccl. 4:11) “Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?” During the storm the boy & girl huddle together for warmth—the downstairs fireplace was all the central heating they had—and comfort. Rafe (Angus MacInnes) the head kidnapper sleeps by himself in the bed on the barge floating on the cold river while his sidekick Spider (Wayne Best) gets the chair.
(Eccl. 4:12) “And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.” The two youngsters stand against a threat, two separate ones. A developing alliance of three ford the river jointly.
Production Values
“” (1984) was written and directed by Stephen H. Foreman. It was based on the novel, An American Ghost by Chester Aaron. It stars child actors Matthew Vipond and Kim Hauser, and a seedy looking Angus MacInnes. The children performed realistically portraying expectations for minors. The villains were obvious in their intentions. The cat didn't lip-sync rigorously with its growls, but what can one expect? It seemed tamer than the cougars that prowl outside my Oregon home; it was trained and thus domesticated.
Its rating was certified TV-Y. The bucolic setting was so realistic I wanted to stay, but the storm made me wish I'd brought my umbrella. The boy responded correctly to the cat by fending it off with a board; running from a cougar would have triggered its chase instinct. It's recommended to back away … slowly.
We see the lion playing with a ball of yarn it found. Cats are by nature curious and playful. A frontier mother once distracted a stalking cougar by dropping baby bedding in its path for it to sniff as she made a slow retreat. Here in Oregon it's reported that a sick cougar that wandered into town attacked a child as that was the only prey it could subdue in its weakened state. The townsfolk realized too late they should have fed it. Some scenes are separated by fade-outs to accommodate inserted commercials. Runtime for “Cougar” is 1¼ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
It may not appeal to woodsmen & hunters, but children should get a kick out of it. At any rate it's not very long. I enjoyed it, and it didn't disturb my sleep at night as werewolf movies do.
Movie Ratings
Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Better than watching TV. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture is taken from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Print.
Nair, Meera. “Summer” previously appearing in Calyx, here part of, Video. Copyright © 2002 by Meera Nair. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002. First Edition. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org