Deliver Us from Evil (1973)

A group of men – certainly acquainted for quite some time, though nobody watching their interactions would call them “friends” exactly unless that watcher is very cynical indeed – are on a hiking and camping trip through rather spectacular mountainous terrain. There’s experienced professional guide Dixie (Jim Davis), a guy who really takes his nickname of “Cowboy” rather too seriously (George Kennedy) with his bullshit macho behaviour and the gun worn outside his pants for all the honest world to feel, Arnold Fleming (Charles Aidman) and his son Nick (Jan-Michael Vincent), the latter under a pall of the divorce blues, Al Zabrocki (Jack Weston) who is not built for this sort of thing, and accountant Steven Dennis (Bradford Dillman). No idea why these guys are spending so much time together, it’s not that they seem to like one another much, nor do they know a lot about each other’s lives.

Be that as it may, when they hear on the radio that a guy we’re not going to call D.B. Cooper/Loki has parachuted earthwards with his ill-gotten skyjacking money, and then witness someone indeed dropping down via parachute, they decide to go on the hunt for him. Cowboy takes that rather seriously indeed, shooting the unarmed man in the back while he’s trying to escape, killing him. Most of the group seem rather more interested in the guy’s monetary plunder than the fine points of murder and self defence, and decide to grab the money and carry it to civilisation. Or they could just keep it? Well, Dixie as well as the audience, know quite well where this is going to go.

This ABC Movie of the Week directed by Boris Sagal looks rather on the costlier side of 70s TV movies. Shot on location in Oregon, the wilderness survival parts of the narrative look really rather impressive, as if at least the people behind the camera were relishing the opportunity to shoot some visual treats for once. In front of the camera, you can find some rather authentically exhausted looking men (no women in this movie at all), the mostly middle-aged plus cast clearly going through a pretty exhausting time.

That’s rather useful for the performances, adding some authenticity to solid 70s TV style performances by most and softening the problems of a script that does tend to the verbally didactic when it comes to the lure of money, even though even an early 70s TV audience would not have been surprised by the whole greed and barbarity angle and certainly needn’t be told quite this bluntly. There are, however, also quiet character moments which also help make up for the too loud moments and provide the actors with some room to do their thing more subtly.

The survival adventure moments don’t just look impressive for a TV movie (or really any low budget film) but are also staged with quite a bit of flair, adding a quality of actual physical danger that makes the very quick mental breakdown of the characters more plausible, and really turns Deliver Us from Evil into a film well worth watching, even if it feels the need to hit you over the head with its message.