I’m a big movie buff. I’m certainly a product of the 80’s and 90’s cinema. Equally, I’m also turning into a big kayaking buff. I thought it would be fun to incorporate these two passions into a single article with some major (and not so major) motion pictures that involve both along with rafting and canoeing.
After sitting down with a pad and paper in hand I carefully made my list of the 10 best awesome kayaking, rafting, and canoeing movies. I came up with way more than ten so we may reexplore this topic in later additions.
I’m not going to include documentaries this time out. Down the road, I’ll do an article on just documentaries. These are just films where a big portion of them involved kayaking or taming the dangers of rapid waters including rafts and canoes. In all honesty, it was very hard finding just movies involving kayaks so I threw their sister crafts in the article to mix it up.
So, prepare to get your feet wet as we rediscover or discover for the first time these water-induced films. The films are in no particular order of ranking. I’ll be candidly honesty in my review of them.
Table of Contents
List of Films
The Sweet Escape (Comme un Avion) (2015):
A mid-life crisis propels graphic designer Michel into a newfound passion for kayaking and a pastoral adventure sparkling with lighthearted charm.
The Sweet Escape is a French film with the movie’s actual title being “Comme un avion,” which means, “Like an airplane.”
The reason why it doesn’t involve him flying, but rather rowing is a metaphor with the kayak doubling as a plane.
Michel is experiencing a mid-life crisis and wants to do something different with his life. He’s married living with his spouse in the northern suburb of Paris. His children have left the nest off living their own lives. We’ve seen it countless times in other films. This film takes a fresh approach to these classic tropes.
There is a game that is played Michel’s work office of palindrome which means a word, number, phrase, or another sequence of characters which reads the same backward as forward. Michel becomes fascinated with the word “kayak” which begins to propel his story.
The movie is a comedy spotlighting a lot of light-hearted humor with a mix of silly circumstances. If you want to take a break from high concept, special effect induced films and would rather indulge in a quirky foreign adventure that involves the kayaking experience the Michel is waiting for you.
Cry From the Mountain (1985):
A couple grow closer again due to their son’s kayaking accident after the father takes his son on a trip to the Alaskan wilderness to tell him that he’s divorcing the boy’s mother.
If you’re looking for an academy award-winning film or one that comes close, then Cry from the Mountain is far from it. The directing is unimaginative. The acting is vaguely tolerable. It’s basically a college course on how not to make a movie.
The production incorporates some good kayaking scenes and beautiful shots from the Alaskan landscape. It’s not long enough to where you’re looking at the clock. It’s watchable is the best compliment I can give to the movie.
Let me indicate to you this film does dwell heavily into religion and is a Billy Graham production. I’m personally not a religious person. There’s no debating on who this movie’s demographic is aiming for. I could still appreciate the film’s message and the overall story arc. And it was made in the ’80s on what looks to be an extremely low budget. Appreciate it for what it is.
It’s a family film with a Christian message. I watched it and I didn’t turn Christian, so it won’t hurt any of the die-hard atheists out there.
Into the Wild (2007):
The son of wealthy parents gives his savings to charity, rids himself of his possessions, and sets out on a journey to the Alaskan wilderness.
Most of us fantasize about doing it. Most of us yearn to do it. Just pick up one day and leave your own mundane existence working a 9 to 5 job, conforming to what society dictates to you afraid of what will happen if you don’t have that safety net of comfort. It takes extreme courage and perseverance to escape to the unknown and face it.
Christopher McCandless does just that leaving the extreme comforts of his wealthy lifestyle. He graduates from Emory University as a top student and athlete expected to reach greatness.
A series of events presents itself and the original journey mapped out for himself is never realized. Instead of embarking on a prestigious and profitable career, he chooses to give his savings to charity, rid himself of his possessions, and set out on a journey to the Alaskan wilderness.
What happens on his adventures is an eye open realization of his own mortality. Based on a true story this film makes you look at life just a little bit differently and perhaps the grass is not greener on the other side. This film is a character study where you can debate why people go about doing certain things as Christopher did. There are several lessons you can derive from his journey. You’ll have to watch the movie to get my meaning.
Whitewater Summer (1987):
An experienced wilderness guide leads a group of teenagers on their first big outdoor adventure with one boy clashing with the guide who attempts at teaching the boy life lessons.
Let’s delve into some films that aren’t necessarily revolving around kayaking but do involve some crazy water adventures. The first movie that instantly came to mind when creating this article was Whitewater Summer starring Kevin Bacon. And why do I remembered this obscure movie so well is the fact it showed up on the pay channels back in the ’80s and they would play this movie a million times on either HBO or Cinemax. I can’t exactly remember which one.
The movie stars a favorite, Kevin Bacon, and a very young Sean Astin. You know Sean Astin. Rudy and Samwise Gamgee And Goonies.
Astin portrays a sheltered and defiant Alan boy who butts heads with Bacon’s character. Poor Kevin Bacon is just trying to teach Astin a little thing called survival.
When Bacon becomes injured it’s up to the boy to put their newfound skills so that they all can survive the ordeal and get everyone back to civilization all in one piece and preferably alive.
The River Wild (1994):
Fast-paced thriller in which a young family on a white-water rafting adventure in Montana are taken hostage by a pair of dangerous fugitives.
What if Kevin Bacon’s character from Whitewater Summer turned evil in his later years? Then he teams up with John C. Reilly just to cause major trouble making this a potential sequel. It isn’t, but in my creative mind, it could be.
Meryl Streep and David Strathairn are an onscreen husband and wife having marital problems mostly due to Strathairn’s character spending too much time working. Streep wants to take her son on a white water expedition for his birthday. Strathairn is littered with work but manages to join his family on their adventure. And on the way, they meet Bacon and Reilly turning this family birthday vacation into a trip for survival.
It all sounds very familiar. With a good script, a fantastic cast and some quality water action the movie propels itself beyond the stereotypical plotlines.
I loved this movie because this was the very first time I had ever seen Meryl Streep in any type of action film. As an appreciator of older women who can kick ass, this film got my juices flowing. I’m just not telling you what juices.
Without a Paddle (2004):
Three friends go on a camping trip to honor their deceased friend. After falling over a waterfall, they are left to the mercy of wild animals and harsh wilderness terrain.
After their dear companion, Billy Anthony Starr kicks the bucket, Tom Dax, Jerry, and Dan go on an outdoor trip out of appreciation for his memory. The campground, in any case, has uncommon noteworthiness. Billy believes celebrated plane criminal D.B. Cooper concealed cash in the zone, and his companions plan to discover it. Shockingly, they are not ready for the experience.
While Deliverance and The White Mile caused us all to wince, the threesome in Without A Paddle can just make us grin at their off-kilter awkwardness on the wild waterway. Looking for unbelievable skyjacker D.B. Cooper’s plunder in the Oregon wild, three youth mates experience a bear, a couple of provocative environmentalists, several blundering however all around equipped pot ranchers, and, discussing Deliverance, even wild-hairy Burt Reynolds.
Shot in New Zealand, the makers use areas of the Waikato River and Wellington’s Hutt River for the sailing scenes and South Auckland’s Hunua Falls for our hapless canoeist’s outing over the falls. The entertainers performed huge numbers of their own stunts, including rowing their kayak through some plunging rapids.
Deliverance (1972):
Four friends decide to get away from their lives for a week of canoeing in rural Georgia where they are stalked and savagely attacked by the locals.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing movies on this list will be the classic “Deliverance.” It’s a fantastic movie, but not one that gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling. It’s also not a film that you can watch over and over again like say Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s a lot like “The Deer Hunter.” It’s a movie you don’t need to revisit in order for it to stay with you over time.
I actually have the film playing as I write this. I probably haven’t seen it in over twenty years and just as I indicated above most of the time when I watch a movie I can forget about what happened in it the next day, but after two decades I could remember almost every single scene in Deliverance. This one is definitely for the adults.
This film is the punchline for endless jokes, however, it’s unquestionably not a satire. Deliverance recounts the gathering of four companions who come from the city to appreciate seven days of kayaking in the backwoods of Georgia. The men abandon their life partners and youngsters, with no thought that their sabbatical will set them in opposition to a gathering of frightening hillbillies. These hillbillies assault them in the timberland without any justifiable cause. I guess they just had really pretty mouths.
The dueling banjos in the film have been a staple for a lot of different pop culture references.
Adapted from poet James Dickey’s novel—indisputably the best fiction is ever written about a canoe trip—Deliverance is ahead of its time, in your face, and continues to be effective 30 years later. Check this film out and hopefully, it won’t make you “Squeal like a pig.”
The African Queen (1951):
After a religious spinster’s missionary brother is killed in WWI Africa she persuades a gin-swilling riverboat captain to use his boat to attack an enemy warship.
African Queen was one of the first “classics” I watched beyond The Wizard of Oz. I grew up when Star Wars came out and the dawn of the big blockbuster, so I had little interest in seeing “old” movies. I wanted to see the new big-budget movies with tons of special effects and creatures.
It was one boring Saturday during a summer when I was checking out what was on my black and white 13-inch television to see if something could grab my interest. Normally, in those days before video games were huge. Before the internet. Before the 60-inch television entertainment center, the kids would be outside in the middle of the street playing Dodgeball or running around the neighbor’s yards when you could do such a thing playing Hide and Go Seek.
Arguably one of the greatest river movies of all time, Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn take on the jungle, rapids, and the German Navy in this classic movie adventure. Filmed on the Ruiki River, in the heart of the Belgian Congo at Murchison Falls near Lake Victoria in Uganda, just making this movie was a monumental test of endurance for both the cast and crew. They endured sickness, spartan living conditions, and even brushes with wild animals and poisonous snakes while on location.
The White Mile (1994):
An ad executive faces a crisis of conscience when the white-water rafting trip his boss organized ends in tragedy and how the aftermath should be portrayed in court.
Dan Cutler, the top of an advertising office, welcomes his partners to a whitewater boating trip. The greeting feels more like a request to a few, Cutler considering the excursion a trial of his representatives’ certainty, boldness, and aptitudes. Retired office leader Nick Karas is a very late expansion, needing to assist Cutler with making sure about certain customers and accepting that it is a straightforward fishing trip.
Misfortune happens when the inflatable carrying the large group, and all are cleared away by the seething current. Five people die in total.
Cutler becomes at odds with Jack Robbins, one of his top executives, over how the aftermath to how it should be portrayed to authorities and to relatives who are suing the company.
Loosely based on a true story, the movie depicts an advertising agency taking 11 executives rafting on Canada’s Chilko River. On a Class V section of the river known as the White Mile, the rafters suffer catastrophe after their raft capsizes, tossing them all into the raging current. In the end, five men are killed, setting up a moral crisis within their corporate world when the surviving relatives file a liability suit against the firm.
A not-so-nice Alan Alda stars as a hard-charging and unrepentant advertising executive who bullies not only his colleagues and clients into the male-bonding trip but also the raft guide by piling too many men into the raft. This isn’t Alda’s first foray into playing the antagonist and he does in with such snarky immorality.
Anaconda (1997):
A documentary crew traveling through the Amazon picks up a stranded man whose hobby is to capture a giant Anaconda snake and plans to continue targeting it on their boat.
Accept no substitute than the original Anaconda. It’s an absolutely ridiculous film with an exceptional cast. They call these types of films guilty pleasures. They attempted to make some crappy sequels after this one, but they all fell flat. You can’t do this type of tongue in cheek film with a script that is self-aware and a cast that can play it all straight.
Jennifer Lopez, Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and Owen Wilson. It’s such a hodgepodge of unique entertainers all in one film and they all play off each other excellently.
It doesn’t matter if you can already guess the plot. It doesn’t stray off the formula of creature movies that have come before it. Once again, man thinks they can beat out nature and don’t do such a great job at it.
