Retired agency executive Nick Karas is a last minute addition, wanting to help Cutler secure some clients and believing that it is a simple fishing trip.

Tragedy occurs along Canada's "White Mile," when the inflatable carrying the large group capsizes, and all are swept away by the raging current.

The film is loosely based on a rafting accident, on August 1, 1987, on the White Mile rapids in the Bidwell Canyon section of the Chilko River, in the Central Interior of British Columbia, Canada.

The other lead character, Jack Robbins, portrayed by Peter Gallagher, is completely fictitious, according to Stonehenge Productions' Executive Producer, Dick Berg.

Shortly before the film premiered, Tamarkin said the manuscript was still incomplete, but he planned on completing it; Unfortunately the original publisher, a unit of Doubleday Books, had gone out of business.