Search: Starring Ned Beatty

For the patient and intelligent viewer willing to give it a chance or for those interested in the topic at hand, this is cinematic gold-dust.

Altman has chosen the perfect cast.

Deliverance works brilliantly as both film entertainment and in exposing and critiquing the condition of the white middle-class American male in the wake of Vietnam and all that.

Martin Sheen is superb in the central role, delivering a carefully judged, downbeat performance that emphasises Slovik's ordinariness.

The film is uneven and, at times, sentimental, with a terrific performance from Washington in a less than glamorous role.

The fusion of the crime thriller’s grim reality with the otherworldly fantasy of the ghostly confederate army is, for the most part, very effective.

Finch has great fun imagining his way into the kind of passionate, dogmatic and slightly unhinged character who has only latterly begun to succeed in the industry in real life.

It is admirable that Verbinski has chosen to forgo 3D, as the spectacle he conjures in his various set-pieces is enough to have you ducking and diving already.

The first half an hour of this rattles along with plenty of good humour, injected with further energy by the Big Country soundtrack, which is as dyed in the wool Scottish as a fine Highland kilt.

Remains unbeaten in terms of influence and iconic moments.

The moral of the tale is that everyone has a talent, however improbable. This is lost, alas, amongst the debris of failed farce.

A real cinematic gem disguised as a rhinestone.