Dealayed Reaction: The River Wild

The Pitch: Meryl Streep can do anything. You can make a movie with her on a raft, call it an action movie, and I'm sure she'll make it work.

How I Came Into It: This isn't a movie so much as it's a litmus test for Meryl Streep's ability to get a nomination. For the record, there was no Oscar nomination for this, but there were SAG and Golden Globe nominations, which is pretty impressive for the type of movie this is.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) By now, you can tell that I'm "Team Meryl". Unsurprisingly, she is the best thing about this movie, convincingly playing everything the role needs. Kevin Bacon hams it up as the villain. The movies looks pretty great. I shouldn't've been that entertained by a predictable movie about rafting, but I was.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I had two big issues with this. The first is that there was virtually no real suspense. The dog wasn't going to die. The dad wasn't going to die. No one was going to die, except of course for the ranger*. Everything happened in exactly the manner I could've predicted in the first few minutes. Second is that I don't believe the evolution of the dad. David Strathairn swings far too wildly from unlikable to hero.

*He checked off every box for being killed in this movie. 
Introduced well after the main characters: check. 
Token law enforcement: check. 
Minority: check. 
Has just enough of a backstory to not be a "redshirt": check. 
He smiled, like, the whole time: check. 
Poor Ranger Johnny. You will be missed.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend