By reimagining the 1994 unique, director and co-writer Ben Katai understands that the premise alone is compelling sufficient for an motion horror thriller. Anybody who has been whitewater rafting earlier than is aware of how essential it’s for everybody to be on the identical web page and work collectively. When that power is thrown off and communication goes south, an excessive journey can rapidly grow to be perilous. Add outdated friendships and previous trauma into the combination, and instantly the raft you are in appears rather a lot smaller. That is the dynamic taking form in “River Wild” that begins to grow to be increasingly more worrisome to Grey and Joey as Trevor turns into extra unhinged. With out complicating issues an excessive amount of out on the water, darkish secrets and techniques from the previous begin to bubble as much as the floor, which gives up simply sufficient thriller to maintain “River Wild” from sinking.
By sticking to a strictly fundamental motion components, there’s a bit extra consideration paid to the relationships between the characters that proceed to deteriorate as their state of affairs turns into much more determined. Though Meester will get saddled with a principally predictable arc, casting Brody and Killam in opposition to kind injects much more power into their performances. Each actors are clearly having a blast making an attempt to outdo one another’s finest robust man impression.
It is also apparent that nobody right here is making an attempt to do a straight-up remake of a ’90s thriller that, for many moviegoers, has fallen into relative obscurity. Netflix’s “River Wild” is a stable backwoods thriller, to make sure, and hopefully it would drive some folks to find the thrill of seeing Meryl Streep in one of many only a few motion roles she’s ever taken on.