So, we’re talking low rent here. But, it’s not awful. Best friends Zach (Kristopher Turner) and Ben (Oliver James) have grown apart as they grew up. Zach’s a male nurse in a nursing home and Ben’s a low-level lawyer in a big, high pressure firm. One of Zach’s patients asks him to find her long-missing granddaughter before the patient dies, and Zach recognizes the girl in the picture as Ben’s high school crush. The girl, Heather, was an animal rights activist, circulating petitions to ban dissection and setting the lab rats free. That got her expelled, but Ben’s never forgotten her. The perfect leverage for Zach to convince Ben to accompany him on a trip to Oregon, where Heather was last seen.
The boys set off, accompanied by Nigel (Rik Young), Heather’s stepbrother. He claims to be going along at granny’s behest. Nigel’s a Brit who travels with a trunk full of toiletries, his custom dart set, fine wine and other amenities. Oh, and he never stops talking about his exploits. Meanwhile, Zach’s idea of packing for their trip downriver is to bring along two kegs of beer. Ben’s too busy fretting about his job, Heather, and two clients who jumped bail and may be after him to worry too much about anything else.
Zach and Ben get a map of sorts from some scary locals, the guys get a raft and camping gear and they set off in search of Heather. Someone’s watching them, but we don’t know who. They brave rapids, waterfalls and psycho squirrels as they head deeper into the woods. Once Nigel gets separated from Zach and Ben, some questions start to get answered, and Nigel’s true colors are shown.
Zach and Ben find, or, rather, get found by Heather (Madison Riley), now going by her ecowarrier name of Earthchild, and her fellow crusader, Thunderstorm (Amber McDonald). Once identities get sorted out, the guys explain why they’ve come and Earthchild quickly agrees to go back with them. One problem, though – she’s got the hots for Zach, not Ben, and that causes some friction between the friends, with Ben storming out.
In the strangest part of the film, Ben gets taken prisoner by a strange, long-beared, fur-wearing guy who’s been living in the woods studying the squirrels. He’s convinced squirrels are the cause of global warming, something he’s particularly interested in because he’s Al Gore’s estranged brother, Hal Gore (Jerry Rice … the football player Jerry Rice). The point to this scene is apparently to get Ben to rethink his anger at Zach; what it mostly serves to do is point out that Jerry Rice cannot act … at all.
Anyway, Ben goes back to the treehouse and he, Zach and the girls are confronted by some seriously bad guys. What will happen? Who will win? Will the psycho squirrels be left to pick the carcasses? Will you even care?
Here’s what Without a Paddle: Nature’s Calling has going for it: the three male leads are all likeable (well, Nigel in an obnoxious way) and the relationship between Zach and Ben is actually pretty believable. Oliver James’ American accent is also impressive. (I’ve liked him ever since What a Girl Wants. His accent’s good enough in this that I was wondering if he was actually American until I heard him talking in the special features.) And, the Oregon scenery is gorgeous. Not much else to say, though.
Special features include a making of featurette where everyone discusses how much they liked working together, a featurette on how the tree house was created, and a really funny featurette, “Furious Nuts,” having to do with casting the squirrels. There’s actual fine acting going on in that one. There’s also a gag reel (made up largely of Jerry Rice’s flubs) and a deleted scenes segment consisting of four incredibly short snippets of stuff cut from scenes in the movie. I’m really not sure why they even bothered to include those.
Technical specs: 1080p High Definition (the better to admire the beautiful scenery), English Dolby 5.1 True HD sound (the better to hear every chirp from the angry squirrels), and English, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitle options. (Not sure how you subtitle a squirrel in Portuguese.)