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(More customer reviews)Over the Edge is as relevant today as it was when it appeared in 1979, maybe even more so. It's a teenage rebellion movie in the best tradition of films like Rebel Without a Cause and The Blackboard Jungle. I can't think of a movie that better depicts the boredom of the American teenager in a sub-divided suburban wasteland where nothing to do becomes a full time activity.
New Granada is a planned community in the middle of nowhere. It's a resounding success. At least the adults want to believe it is. They make money, make deals, and want to attract business and create something in the middle of nowhere, a shiny happy place to live, away from the big city. Meanwhile the kids are stuck in limbo with nothing to do and nowhere to go save a Rec center run by an older hippy woman who lets the kids drink, smoke, toke, and generally make a science out of boredom.
Carl is a good kid from a good home, but he's beginning to fall in with the wrong crowd of kids, one of whom is Richie (Matt Dillon in his first film), a rough and tumble teen who sparks the now all too believable climax. The photography is beautiful and lends the film an eerie quality as it depicts New Granada as an ambitious moral failure, a new but already rotting development. The money to build a promised shopping mall and bowling alley has run out, leaving the kids with a Rec center that is eventually shut down by a police force (led by Dough Boy from Taxi Driver) that puts the pressure on until something has to give.
It's supposedly based on a true story, but which true story is unimportant. There are countless New Granadas in America, and the film was shot in a planned community in Aurora, Colorado. The landscape is bleak, with a consistently gray and grainy sky. The 70s trappings, the promise of 'Tomorrow's City...Today' and the grim reality of its cultural bankruptcy all create a depressing and desperate atmosphere. The powder keg finale probably seemed unlikely and over the top in 1979. Not so today as we're reminded of another Colorado suburb named Littleton.
Like Kids, the cast of Over the Edge actually look to be the appropriate age they are depicting (not your typical Hollywood 25 year olds playing high school students). This film is a sharp contrast to the popular teen films of the 80s such as the John Hughes oeuvre and even Fast Times at Ridgemont High. While kids today are more plugged into the outside world (literally) with computers, the internet, video games, and a greater exposure to mass media, the themes of alienation, frustration, and parents who are trying to save their kids but more concerned with property values are still relevant. Today, however, the more kids have to do, the more scapegoats people can find for their actions in the wake of events like Littleton.
Highly recommended, if you can find it. This is screaming for a proper DVD release.
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"Tomorrow's city...today" is how the planned suburban paradise of New Granada promotes itself, but something has been left out of the plans. No one is paying attention to the town's teens. Jonathan Kaplan directs this hot-blooded cult classic (a 1979 London Film Festival Outstanding Film Award winner) about kids left to discover their own values and coming up with enough drugs, booze and discontent to push everyone Over the Edge. Fourteen-year-old Matt Dillon makes his screen debut as the kids' charismatic, doomed leader Richie. The anthemic soundtrack by Van Halen, The Ramones, Cheap Trick and others provide the film's rock-n-roll heart. DVD Features:Audio Commentary:Commentary by Director Jonathan Kaplan, Screenwriters Charlie Haas and Tim Hunter and roducer George Litto Theatrical Trailer
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