Tagline: The call of the wild, the thrill of adventure. The mistake of a lifetime.
The story of three friends (Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard) from the big city of Philadelphia who go canoeing together out in the woods and mountains of Washington State after the death of a friend, Billy. Billy was obsessed with going there to search for the unaccounted-for $194,200 out of the $200,000 that famed airliner highjacker D.B. Cooper parachuted with quite possibly to his death in 1971 $5,800 of his marked ransom loot was found in 1980. Canoeing down the Columbia River, the trio soon finds that their canoeing experience goes wrong…, horribly wrong, as the river turns dangerous, and they have an encounter with a crazy mountain man (Burt Reynolds).
When three guys (Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard) set out to fulfill their boyhood dreams of finding long-lost ransom money somewhere in the Oregon wilderness, they take a canoe upriver and everything that can go wrong does. Hunted by two crazed backwoods farmers, they encounter a bear that eats their cell phone, death-defying rapids, tree-hugging hippie chicks and an eccentric old mountain man (Burt Reynolds) who might lead them back to safety…or shoot them.
When childhood buddies Dan (Seth Green), a successful but neurotic doctor; Jerry (Matthew Lillard), a business high-flier on the edge of burnout; and Tom (Dax Shepard), a Harley-riding wild child; reunite in Oregon at their friend Billy’s funeral, their reunion kicks off more than a little nostalgia.
While reminiscing in their childhood tree house, the trio discovers that Billy had been pursuing their boyhood dreams of finding legendary bank robber DB Cooper’s $200,000 stash. Now with the map Billy left behind and a cereal box compass, Dan, Jerry and Tom decide to fulfill their friend’s dream and go on a canoe trip to find Cooper’s cash.
But when they find themselves hassled by the sheriff at “the corner of Podunk and you-got-a-purty-mouth,” treed by a huge brown bear who mistakes one of them for her cub, chased by vicious Rottweilers named Lynyrd and Skynyrd, hunted as prey by pot farmers whose crop they accidentally destroy, and battling terrifying rapids down a raging river in a canoe about to plummet over a waterfall, they begin to wonder which of their ideas was worse — searching in the wilderness for Cooper’s cash, or believing it ever existed in the first place.
Without a Paddle (2004)
Directed by: Steven Brill
Starring: Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, Dax Shepard, Abraham Benrubi, Rachel Blanchard, Nadine Bernecker, Danielle Cormack, Bonnie Somerville, David Stott
Screenplay by: Mitch Rouse, Jay Legget, Harris Goldberg
Production Design by: Perry Andelin Blake
Cinematography by: Jonathan Brown
Film Editing by: Debra Neil-Fisher, Peck Prior
Costume Design by: Ngila Dickson
Set Decoration by: Meg Everist
Art Direction by: Denise Hudson
Music by: Christophe Beck
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for drug content, sexual material, language, crude humor, violence.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: August 18, 2004
Visits: 106
