recommended

Overrated

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

"Your face. What happened? I was very drunk last night. I was riding a bicycle, and I fell."Can you imagine this. One moment you're standing in an operating room amputating someones leg with a saw. The other moment you're running like a madman through Laos trying to outrun the authorities. This happens to John Lake (Rossif Sutherland), a hard-working doctor, who's sent on a well-deserved holiday after a discussion with the head doctor. At his destination (It surely isn't a five star all-inclusive resort) he's having a few drinks one evening, accompanied by an over friendly bartender. On his way to his humble hut he witnesses an assault on a local girl by a drunken, noisy Australian. And in a split second he makes the wrong decision. Before he knows it, he is a fugitive who's wanted for murdering the son of an Australian Senator and raping a native girl.The result is an intense manhunt for the guilty western doctor by the local police. And he's guilty. That's a fact. The only thing John has in mind, is not to go on trial in Laos itself. "River" is a film in which desperation, fear and guilt are palpable presence. John, sweaty, bloodied and bruised, is constantly on the run. A boat ride with a local resident. A lift from a couple dodgy looking men. A bus trip which happens to be controlled by a police patrol. It doesn't matter in what way he travels, as long as he stays out of the hands of the authorities and manages to reach a US Embassy. He even has to make a certain decision in the end, that goes against his moral principles. The result of this nerve-racking race, is that the film never pauses for a moment. The pace is blistering (probably appropriate for the climate there) fast and exhilarating.Rossif Sutherland (son of Donald and brother of Keifer Sutherland) acts convincingly. You can see the desperation and fear on his face. A chaotic flight where he relies entirely on his survival instinct. The intensity is unbearable and because of the sultry environment it's as if you can smell John's pungent body odor in your living room. Although the story is fairly straightforward and obvious, the ending is still surprising. Let me put it this way. It has a high "Oh come on" content. A bit against the flow compared to the rest of the movie. I guess the sense for justice presented itself to John suddenly. It's probably a personal trait. John can't resist to do good for others over and over again. More reviews here : http://bit.ly/1KIdQMT

2.3 of 10. Nothing like a river in its style. Though the title and the story do eventually connect, that's about the only connection you feel from this. The thrills/suspense all feel artificial, forced without anything to be of a concern. The running looks more like jogging.Maybe the lead actor's connection to a Hollywood star is what gets this some free publicity, but it's not the story or his acting. This would be better setup as a tragic comedy about a naive American in a foreign country, but nobody involved seems to recognize it and you end up with a film taking its actors far too seriously.I wouldn't recommend this on any level. It tries to provide some meaningful commentary on international problems, but even that feels concocted within this film.

A North American doctor working in Laos accidentally kills an Australian man who has just raped a local woman. He then flees the authorities, while the situation is made worse for him by the revelation that the man he killed is a senator's son.This independent Canadian/Laos co-production is a chase thriller that stars Donald Sutherland's son Rossif Sutherland. He is in every scene and is pretty good in it, conveying the worrying scenario his character finds himself in convincingly. The story itself is quite spare with no wastage whatsoever. It moves at a very good pace, which I suppose you would expect from a chase film and it does build up some decent suspense at times. What takes it up to another level though is the setting. Not too many films are set in Laos and the exotic locales make for a very pleasing backdrop to events. Aside from this there is perhaps nothing particularly out of the ordinary in this one but it still works very well and is overall a well-executed, lean thriller.

An American volunteer doctor becomes a fugitive in the south of Laos after he intervenes in the sexual assault of a young woman, after advising the assailant that the young woman had already had enough to drink.When the assailant's body is pulled from the Mekong River, things quickly spiral out of control, when it is discovered that he was an Austrailian senators son.....The film could be a subliminal warning for a lot of things. Travelling alone, getting drunk alone in a strange place, intervening in what isn't your business, even though what you are doing is admirable.It just seems that I spent the duration of the film cursing the main character, John for making some really silly, irrational decisions.But this isn't a criticism of the film, it was more like me thinking to myself 'Oh well done in doing that/leaving there/lying to them, now i'm going to be on the edge of my seat again for the next ten minutes'.Because the film doesn't really give you any information on John, other that he is a Surgeon, and a bit of a maverick one at that, it really does put you into his situation.Would you really put your hands up straightaway and admit what you have done, even though you know it was the right thing to do, because of the language barrier, the intensity of everyone due to the events of the narrative, and having that limited knowledge of the justice system, and how execution is rife, regardless of what the circumstances surrounding the event may have? It's a tense 85 minutes, Sutherland may have the acting gusto yet of that of his father, or step-brother, because by the beginning of the second act, he's a nervous wreck, and you really feel for the guy as he wanders aimlessly from place to place, becoming more and more desperate, as time is inevitably running out for him.There are two jaw dropping scenes that nearly made turn away from the film.He asks a man for a ride on his boat, and due to the language barrier, there is a little bit of confusion at precisely the wrong time, and the silliest thing he does of all, get into a car in the middle of nowhere, very late at night.It's sometimes an ordeal to get through, but it stays on the right side of tense, and doesn't quite push you over that proverbial seat edge.The final ten minutes goes a little off track, huge plot holes are explained in a 'don't worry about it' sort of way, and the final scene in the train station really did make me chuckle, as ninety percent of the background extras appeared to be Tibetan monk, which I deciphered as the writer subtly saying to the audience 'he's doing the right thing, it's a karma thing'.But other than that, it's a really tense film, with some very unsettling locations, and thank heavens it was made as an independent movie, because this could have easily have been made with Matt Damon, and turned into a Bourne like thriller.Because that would have taken any sense of urgency or realism away from it.