Over the Edge (1979)
Grade: 94
"Over the Edge" is a disturbing film that depicts the lives and values of teenagers, and their conflicts with parents and authority figures. The teens have no sense of future. They hang out, do drugs, sometimes beat each other up, but concepts like college, career, and work are foreign. They have way too much time on their hands, nowhere to go, and nothing to do.
They live in the planned outer-suburbian community of New Grenada. The community is struggling. Housing construction has stopped, the caddie dealership sales have slowed, and the adults have a sense of desperation for new investment. The teens clearly have not been considered in the planning: a proposed bowling alley and skating rink was shelved, there's no theatres, and the kids hang out in vacant lots when necessary and crowd in the one-room recreation center when possible.
Clearly the director sympathizes with the teens and not the parents. The parents love their children, want the best for them, but are clueless as to their values and feelings. When the teens get into trouble, the solution always seems to be discipline in the form of curfews and "weekends in the hill" meaning teen jail.
One of the teens is Carl (Michael Eric Kramer), whose best friend is Richie (Matt Dillon). Richie is on probation, mouths off at the police at any opportunity, and is training Carl to do the same. Carl is clearly intelligent, but seems bent on resisting authority and winning the love of Cory (Pamela Ludwig).
Dillon and Kramer obtain a handgun, which provides entertainment as target practice until the shells are spent. The police are after them, and Dillon decides to steal his mother's car and leave town. Later chased by ill-tempered sheriff Doberman (Harry Northup), Dillon makes the mistake of brandishing his unloaded handgun and is killed. Kramer gets away.
Stunned by the death of Dillon, the adults hold a meeting at the school "cafetorium". There is much hand wringing and finger pointing. No one realizes that the kids need fast food joints, theatres, bowling alleys, etc, which also would provide part-time jobs. The teens know the parents are there, and (this is truly memorable) lock them in the school, eventually turning off the lights and mocking them over the PA system. Meanwhile, the "Over the Edge" teens torch and smash the parents cars and fire guns into the air.
This is the first film for both Matt Dillon and Vincent Spano, who have moved on to become successful actors. But I doubt that they have ever been in a film this good again. Highly recommended especially to anarchists and sociologists.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
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