Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Martin Onassis It's your typical vacation-goes-really-bad movie with the guide going wacko, and the resulting helplessness of the couch potatoes in the hands of a brutal alpha type.Lisa Aliff is gorgeous, and all the actors are good, especially the psycho. What's bad is the writing, and the implausability of much of the action. Three's one scene where the psycho chases down one of the gang who has run off at dawn trying to climb out of the river valley. Meanwhile, the other three hostages escape in the raft and try to take it down river. They get turned over in a rapids (this scene is beautifully intercut with the psycho chasing the one hostage down). Then incredibly, the raft ends up in the same area that the psycho has chased the other hostage down. HUH? When I first saw it, I thought they were introducing new characters into the movie, until I saw that it was the same people. Crawling up a river valley does not put you in the same place as a raft that has gone at least a few miles downstream. It's this kind of inattention to script or continuity that destroys what could've been a decent movie. The action is also the cheesy, slo-mo type of this era, with opponents standing in ways asking to be shot and squibs exploding, and bodies contorting so much it just looks ridiculous.The cinematography is fantastic, unusually great of the rapids and the falls, benefitting from its location in Zimbabwe, a place you wouldn't go to now. Anyway, fault the producer and the writers.

Comeuppance Reviews "Ain't no way of winnin' when you're playin' with the devil's odds." A bunch of stupid, unlikable party dudes go to the Zambizi River in Africa for no reason. If they wanted to "par-tee down" there are a lot of better places to do so.Their tour guide down the Damned River is Ray (Shellen-A Treat Williams doppelganger) an American running away from his past by living and toting tourists around on his raft. His accent comes and goes, as he is southern in every other scene in the movie.This particular group of tourists includes a poetry-spouting nerd, a hippie who ends every sentence with the word "man" in true Tommy Chong style. And the most unlikable character of all (and that's saying something…): Jerry (Bancroft) a big fat party animal who isn't fat and who whines about the lack of MTV in rural Africa. Jerry also demands his "Chow-ski" when he is hungry (because he is "fat") and the audience is rooting for his demise from the get-go.Normally these characters would be seen in a 80's romp. Think "Up The Creek" meets "Deliverance". "Damned River" is in the tradition of other survival-river movies such as the aforementioned "Deliverance", "Rituals" (1977),"The River Wild", and "Survival Quest" (1989). "Damned River" is the bottom of the barrel of this bunch. If you have seen every other river flick, and are hankering for more river madness, check this out, otherwise, steer clear.Ray tangles with a great white hunter type named Von Hoenigen (Louis Van Niekirk) and it ends with fan favorite death, decapitation. It livens up the proceedings. Also on hand is Mavuso, a kindly local. Ray get crazier and crazier as the movie progresses, eventually reaching "Daget" –from-"Twice Under" like proportions. Shellen overacts in much the same vein.Bradford Bancroft is actually effective as the annoying Jerry because he achieved his aim of getting the audience to hate him. Bancroft can also be seen in "A Time To Die" and "Dangerously Close" The movie is very dumb as it is but it pretentiously tries to not be, "casually" throwing in high-minded references to such authors as Zola and Byron. Sadly, this wasn't enough to set it apart from the pack. Watch this "Damned" classic tonight! Comeuppance Review by: Ty & Brett For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

merklekranz No one is ever going to mistake "Damned River" for "Deliverance", but it would be a mistake to dismiss "Damned River" as non-entertainment. Filmed on location, this Zimbabwe rafting adventure has photography that is simply outstanding. The Zambezi River raft sequences are terrific. The acting is less than marginal, but that is no surprise. Character development is not great either, but in this type of low budget flick, you rarely get a fully developed script. What you do get is four against one, but of course the one has the guns. The story pretty much plays out in a linear fashion, with the crazed 'River Rat Ray", dishing out the orders and brutality, until the tables are finally turned. - MERK

trust-3 Stephen Shellen is a great actor totally animated and hostile in this film and you cant help but to love him. Check out a river runs through it and you will notice how his part in that movie wakes you up and makes you laugh and you feel sad when his character leaves.