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OK, you've heard all the cliches--a roller-coaster ride and all that. This is a thrilling, gut-wrenching movie. The photography is amazing. (Think of the opening shots on the placid Charles, and compare them to the frenetic white water shots later.)
I have slightly mixed feelings about this movie, if only because I'm starting to hate books/movies with murder and mayhem in them. So the threats from the bad guys in the movie bothered me after a while. However, the white water shots are wonderful and the movie really isn't all that gory (it's no Natural Born Killers).
The audience at this movie this afternoon was surprisingly old. But it's the sort of movie a younger crowd should enjoy.
How is Meryl Streep as an action hero? She's great. She has the liberty of mouthing off in this movie, because without her the bad guys are toast and she knows it. And so do they. Kevin Bacon is engaging as the friendly bullsh*tter who turns out to be a sociopath.
I'd probably rate this a 7 because the script is somewhat contrived, and I would have enjoyed it more without the kidnapping aspect of the movie, and the ways the husband (David Straihairn (?)) is made to suffer throughout. But I'd still reccomend it, for just about any age. (There's no sex, the killings are pretty antiseptic and the language isn't that bad (or I've become immune) for a PG-13.)