When the guys are camped on the riverbank and Lewis remarks he ‘thought I heard something’ .. does anybody reckon they were being watched by the hillbillies then, at that moment? Were they being followed the whole time? I always find it kinda eerie knowing that out there in the woods someone was watching them, studying them, waiting to make their move.
Great film.
I think that’s the whole point
shareI used to think no but the more I watch this movie, the more I think the filmmakers left it somewhat ambiguous (much like Drew's death and the man on the cliff's identity). One thing that wouldn't make sense though is the Griner bros driving those cars to Orie per the deal but doing so would connect them to Ed and his friends intended revenge whether that be just raping them or killing them or both.
Isn't that kind of what Sheriff was pondering at the end, if that third man with the Griner brothers had something to do with Drew's death/disappearance? At that moment, Ed and Bobby look at each other as if wondering if they were followed?
One thing is for sure, the third man that hopped into the Griner bros truck with a gun similar to the kind the toothless man had was NOT the toothless man himself. If you pause right around the time "It ain't nothing but the biggest river in the state" you can see a close-up of this man's face and while however unwelcoming the features were, it was not the face of the toothless man. Then once they push-off in their canoes and Drew makes a crack about the way the hillybilly's talked, the Griner bros and that third man look like they're thinking, "ha well we will show them!" as they walk away.
I just think it's weird the Griner brother's would have followed through with the vehicles being driven to Aintry when they could have either sold it or given it away—distancing themselves from even meeting these 4 city boys. Maybe someone who read the book can chirp in.
As someone said in another post about this, the men didn't seem to think there was four city boys total.
Definitely creepy to think they were being followed.
Agreed on the greatness of Deliverance. As to the city boys riding on the river being watched, that remark by Lewis could be placed in a literary context as a foreshadowing rather than an "inner knowing" or "sixth sense" on the part of his character. It's maybe something author James Dickey added to the narrative to plant seeds of,--what?--maybe doubt, in the minds of the viewer, that a least one character knows that something big was comin' down the road, or river, as the case may be; and that Lewis, while he didn't know what it was for sure, sensed it.
He knew something was there, maybe right behind the trees; maybe up on a hill, looking at and stalking these city men, whose agenda he could only guess. Yet again, in the larger scheme of things I'm not sure the author's intention was to make Lewis come across as a primitive man more in touch with nature than the others, who sees and feels things differently, has some unique instincts, albeit amorphous ones, that capture the "danger vibes" that surround Lewis and his fellow campers even as Lewis does not himself know what make of them.
Later on, when danger really does strike, and dreadful things are happening, it's Lewis who rises to the occasion, armed with no less (or more) than a bow and arrow, to take direct action. It's a stirring few stirring seconds when we, the viewers, get to see this, and for a few brief shining moments Lewis becomes rather the action hero of the movie even as he pays for his act, and pays dearly, way downriver.