MovieChat Forums > The River Wild (1994) Discussion > please explain this to me---SPOILER WARN...

please explain this to me---SPOILER WARNING

posted 18 years ago by heidihot
44 replies | jump to latest

I haven't found much mention of this when I read discussions about this movie although I saw one review on here briefly address it. While I do enjoy this movie, I always have the same question when it is over that I have never been able to answer. I just keep thinking that there must be an explanation because it is too big of an error for the writers to overlook.

The family's father is able to escape and follows the rest without them knowing through to the end when he sabotages Wade and his partner's escape after the dangerous ride through the Gauntlet. Before they go through the gauntlet, Meryl Streep's character is describing how deadly the trip will be but Wade is willing to risk his life because he has to get through the gauntlet in order to escape to wherever they were going.

Well, if it is possible to get past the Gauntlet just by walking like the father did, then why did he insist on risking his own life by going via the raft? Didn't anybody know that it was possible to go on foot? If Meryl Streep's character had been a guide and grew up there, she must have been familiar enough to know that and suggest it. Was Wade just sadistic? They weren't delivering anything so heavy that it had to go by raft. What am I missing here?

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] audiopinions 12 years ago

Here's how I see it.

Meryl Streep, when guessing at what Wade/Terry's escape plan was says something like:

"That's smart. Stay off road a few days, head a few hundred miles South where you have a car waiting."

So just think about that. Would you rather walk a few hundred miles or let the current of a River carry you that distance?

People will refute that and say "Yea, but how did the husband get there at the same time?"

While I agree that this is difficult to accept as logical, it's in no way impossible. The River is faster as I've said before, but that's if you're actually moving. Who's to say the boat didn't stop, or travel at a very lazy pace? We saw earlier that Meryl just has to tell Wade/Terry she's tired and she gets a break, so how do we know she didn't slow the trip up like that? We know for A FACT that the boat gets stopped once by the Forest Ranger, so that's at least one delay.

It's not like we see a side by side comparison of every moment the boat/Tom are travelling. He could've been sprinting non-stop while the boat floated along. Is it implausible? Absolutely. Is there anything in the movie that guarantees there's no way he'd catch the raft? No, there's not.

[–] Stratego (31085) 8 months ago

Then the question is, why didn't Bacon and Reilly not simply pass the Gauntlet on land like Strathairn once they got there? Streep knew the area.

[–] user-24723 8 years ago

Haha funny as *beep*. I laughed out loud at that. Excellent point. Massive plot hole.

[–] mplo (2372) 6 years ago

Wade and Terry started out being friendly enough with the family, but their true motives came up shortly thereafter; Wade and Terry were criminals, who were also sadistic killers.

[–] mplo (2372) 6 years ago

As some other posters on here pointed out, Gail refrained from suggesting that Wade and Terry travel on foot, in order to protect Tom. Had she not taken them down the river, Wade and Terry would've invariably killed Gail and her son Roarke.

[–] Stratego (31085) 6 years ago

I can understand Streep not wanting to tell them after she found out they were criminals out of fear of getting killed once they realized they didn't need her anymore. But why didn't Bacon and Reilly know? Did their partner Frank lie to them so he could get rid of them down the road?

[–] Who (5146) 5 years ago

Maybe someone already posed this above, but the bag of stolen cash from the cattle auction was shown as being heavy. Their sole objective was to get themselves AND THE CASH over the border to Canada. The Dad had two free arms so he could walk along narrow cliffs, scale a few rock faces and do whatever it took to get thru the steep terrain. The Dad was a good swimmer too which was established earlier on. Maybe he climbed by the gauntlet drop then swam the rest of the way.