THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 1, 1994 TAG: 9410010029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E01 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Movie Review
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
MAHVELOUS MERYL is a superb, and infinitely varied, actress, but would you want her to row you down the river?
From the outset, ``The River Wild,'' as a movie project, has been viewed with suspicion. For Meryl Streep watchers it looked like a possible prostitution of her art. Was she selling out to the action market?
There is no question that she badly needs a hit. Streep collects Oscar nominations as if they were diamond necklaces - even winning a pair. But even Oscar winners have to pay the bills. ``Sophie's Choice,'' one of the films for which she won an Oscar, was much admired but never attracted a mainstream audience. More recently, her efforts to prove she had a sense of humor in ``Death Becomes Her'' got lost in an overemphasis on special effects, and the film did disappointing business.
What's a great actress going to do? The answer is . . . take the oars in her own hands.
The result, a trip down the movie rapids with Mama Meryl fiercely protecting her family, is much better than anyone would have suspected. Sure, the river is strewn with red herrings and standard thriller tricks, but in the end, as well as the middle, it's impossible not to like it.
It's a movie with family values that even Dan Quayle could endorse. At the same time, there is adventure. In truth, it is more an adventure film than a thriller.
Meryl plays Gail, an outdoorswoman who was raised on the river and once even rode through the formidable Gauntlet, the difficult rapids where three rivers meet and drop, drop, drop. Even before we enter the theater, we know she's destined to ride those rapids again.
Gail has sold out to a quiet existence as a teacher of deaf children in Boston. Her husband is a work-stressed architect. The marriage is headed nowhere.
To celebrate son Roarke's birthday, the couple go on a rafting trip. Along the way, they run into the charming Kevin Bacon, who smiles a lot and flirts with both Meryl and her son. He's a charmer, but we all know that he's up to no good. Actually, he and his plug-ugly partner, John C. Reilly, are escaping criminals, and they need wonderwoman Meryl to get them down the river.
Through all literature, before and after ``Huckleberry Finn,'' traveling down a river has been a metaphor for the tide of life. This is a no-exit trip. No exit from the marriage and no exit from life.
Of course, when the family is threatened, bonding is immediate.
We've seen Streep amaze us with exaggerated accents that, tried by a lesser actress, would have been deadening. Here, she comes down to earth, sounding like an ordinary woman. She doesn't mind looking disheveled and outdoorsy - messing her hair even more than did Katharine Hepburn back when she took ``The African Queen'' down that other river. The humanization of Streep is complete, and we come away thinking that she might be, after all, a real woman and not just acting royalty.
Her artistry is best expressed in a scene in which, after having been threatened by Bacon, she looks at him and says forthrightly, ``I'm going to kill you.'' It is the eyes more than the voice that convince us that he'd better step back.
The tension is actually not that high pitched. There's never any doubt as to the outcome, but it's fun to watch nonetheless. The main attraction is how far director Curtis Hanson will go. He likes to use Hitchcock tricks that are so obvious that they may inspire laughter rather than screams, but one suspects that that's his intention.
The star-making outing here is from David Strathairn, an actor whom mature women tell me they have openly coveted since his outdoorsy Cajun boatman role in ``Passion Fish.'' He's a fine actor and even does something with the role of the stuffy husband.
It is a bit of a stretch to believe that the husband goes instantly from a nerdy introvert to outdoors fiend as he races along the river, swimming like a seal and setting up traps to try to save his wife and son. His rescue efforts are the silliest aspect of the film. Still, the actor has presence and should be elevated to star billing after this exposure.
Bacon continues his successful efforts to emerge as a character actor after his career as leading man has faded. His smiling, charming villain is suitable, even if we wonder why anyone wouldn't see through it immediately.
As for little Joseph Mazzello, a veteran of ``Jurassic Park,'' his whining is more irritating than involving as he foolishly prefers the flamboyant villain to his responsible dad.
``The River Wild'' should not be confused with ``Wild River,'' a much better 1960 film about the Tennessee Valley Authority that was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick. Nor should it be compared to the much-more serious 1972 whitewater darkness of ``Deliverance.''
The scenery, mostly photographed in Montana, is spectacular. The musical score, composed by the always-rousing Jerry Goldsmith, is lively.
And then there is Mama Meryl, never rowing slowly. Without her, it would be a routine voyage. With her, it's a quite entertaining and eye-blinking dip into the rapids. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Meryl Streep plays an ex-river guide whose family vacation turns
into a struggle for survival in ``The River Wild.''
Photo by MELISSA MOSELY/Universal Pictures
Gail (Meryl Streep) is confronted by a charming but menacing
stranger, Wade (Kevin Bacon), in ``The River Wild.''.
MOVIE REVIEW
``The River Wild''
Cast: Meryl Streep, Kevin Bacon, David Strathairn, Joseph
Mazzello, John C. Reilly
Director: Curtis Hanson
Screenplay: Denis O'Neill
Music: Jerry Goldsmith
MPAA rating: PG-13 (tense but primarily a family thriller,
lessons about responsibility and familial relationships, could have
been a PG)
Mal's rating: 3 Stars
Locations: Movies 10 in Chesapeake; Janaf and Main Gate in
Norfolk; Lynnhaven 8, Kemps River, Pembroke and Surt-N-Sand in
Virginia Beach
by CNB