Four middle-class suburban men decide to embark on a three-day canoe trip down a particularly wild section of a river in Georgia. For Ed Gentry, Bobby Trippe, Drew Ballinger, and Lewis Medlock, the trip represents a break from their daily routines, a chance for adventure with few real risks, and the last occasion to see a beautiful valley before the river is dammed up. Lewis, an enthusiastic outdoorsman and champion archer, is obsessed by the desire to pit himself against nature.
When two of the friends are viciously attacked by mountain men, their mild adventure becomes a fight for their very lives. Men prey upon one another, the treacherous river becomes a graveyard for those without the strength or the luck to survive, and Ed, forced to lead his friends to safety, calls upon primal instincts buried within him to achieve deliverance.