Top 7 Outdoor Fiction Flicks
Here’s my list of top 7 movies that takes place in the great outdoors. Of course, nature isn’t all that great to some of the unlucky people who find themselves in these luckless situations. In fact, looking at this list, one could come to the conclusion that humans have no business mingling in nature at all. Here we are truly out of our element.
Over the course of compiling this, I’ve learned that no matter where you are, nature has a way of embarrassing you in front of your friends.
Excluded are documentaries because real life isn’t as exciting as fiction. Here’s the list in no particular order:
The River Wild
This is some good Kevin Bacon goodness where he’s the villain and along with John C. Reilly kidnap a family on vacation. It was good times for Meryl Streep and her family until these two happen upon them. But this is where the real family bonding begins.
Nature verdict: Helpful.
Predator
Man…the ultimate game. Things just go from bad to worse for this special forces team. Not only are they out in the hot jungle, but they’re being stalked by a big, hungry for death hunter, who gets his kicks by hanging skinned corpses and polishing skulls in his spare time.
Nature verdict: Pain in the ass. It’s bad enough walking through a forest, but try evading something that swings from the trees while in that forest with no trail to speak of.
Rambo
The war vet comes home, is assaulted by some cops. He in turn batters them around and escapes into the woods. Here he takes advantage of his training to hide, recover, and elude the national guard long enough to exact his revenge on the town.
Nature verdict: Kick ass. Forests. Woods. Nature. These are no places for the amateur. But if you’re a trained killer who’ll soon be rescuing POW’s or making human stew with a 50 cal., then you deserve to call the outdoors your home. Of course I’m talking about the latest Rambo installment, not the clip shown above.
The Hunted
Benicio Del Toro is the lone badass. Armed only with a knife, he goes about dispatching his victims with no remorse. The shots of the knife flying through the air, him stealthily stalking his prey, or the last fight all add up to making this movie a truly entertaining gem.
Nature verdict: Bad. Sometimes on the trail I wonder if I’m being stalked. Not by animal, but by man. This movie just reinforces this ultra paranoid belief.
Deliverance
Every back county backpackers worst nightmare come true. The last thing any outdoors trip needs is an encounter with local folk who hold a grudge. What’s worse is the fact that they are sadistic grudge holders.
Nature verdict: Bad. Just bad. Death is inevitable in these movies. But the worst thing to happen is the cover up. Any trip requiring you to remain mum about what happened to your friends should rank as the worst trip ever.
White Water Summer
Another Kevin Bacon movie. This movie has it all, struggle, passion, and overcoming every fear known to man. It’s the ultimate backpacking journey that was planned by the most extreme outdoors man since Man vs. Wild.
Nature verdict: Great. It’s not often that we emerge from the woods with more confidence than we had going in.
The Fugitive
This movie is more urban than outdoorsy. But Tommy Lee Jones mouths off one of his most memorable lines ever. Plus, the escape from the train is one of the best collision scenes ever.
Nature verdict: Very helpful. If they weren’t traveling in the woods, then there would have been no way Kimble would have escaped.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 12:01 am and is filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
