A taut exercise with a few teeth-gnashing rafting sequences.

Buoyed up by Meester’s strong performance and some truly gnarly bits of violence, River Wild is an effective little potboiler, appropriate for a Saturday afternoon.

It’s not every day that Seth Cohen and Blair Waldorf fight for their lives on a whitewater rafting journey, but if River Wild proves anything, it’s that this should be an everyday occurrence.

But the script has its pitfalls that are typical for low-budget thrillers like this. There are multiple lines of dialogue that feel so corny and out of character, it may even remove you from the action.