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Over the Edge (film)
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Wikipedia article
'Over the Edge' is an American coming-of-age crime drama film directed by Jonathan Kaplan and released in May 1979. The film, based on actual events, had a limited theatrical release but has since achieved cult film status. It was Matt Dillon's film debut.
Plot
In the fictional isolated planned community of New Granada, east of Denver, Colorado, Carl Willat and his friends Richie White, Claude Zachary, and Claude's younger brother Johnny hang out at "the Rec" (Recreation Center), which closes at 6 p.m. and is the only place where kids can spend time together. They are supervised by Rec counselor Julia Vogel.
From an overpass, Mark Perry and his friend shoot a BB hole in the windshield of a passing patrol car and flee on their bikes. They pass Carl and Richie, telling them to hide. Sgt. Ed Doberman arrives shortly, pulls them from their hiding place and finds a pocket knife on Richie. He apprehends them and notifies Carl's father Fred, a local businessman. After questioning the pair about the BB gun, Doberman lectures Carl about potential imprisonment in "the Hill", a juvenile detention facility.
The next day, the students assemble in the school's cafeteria for a presentation about the previous day's events, where Carl meets and befriends Cory. That evening, Carl asks about the land opposite the Rec, and Fred explains that he talked to Homeowners Association president Jerry Cole about having wealthy landowner Mr. Sloan buy the land and build an industrial park there instead of the planned twin cinema and roller rink and bowling alley, infuriating Carl.
At the Rec's playground, Claude buys a gram of hash from Tip. The group migrates to a nearby house after notification about a party there. After Carl witnesses Mark and Cory making out, Mark warns Carl against mentioning his name to the cops. After Doberman arrives in his patrol car and busts the party by announcing the 9:30pm curfew, Carl walks home alone, unknowingly followed and assaulted by Mark and his friend. He is caught by his parents, who interrupt their meeting with Cole.
The next day, Doberman visits the Rec; ignoring Julia's objections, he finds drugs on Claude and apprehends him. He emerges from the Rec among the rowdy teens to find Richie standing defiantly atop the patrol car. After a brief foot chase, Richie escapes.
Richie and Carl encounter Cory and her friend Abby, who have just stolen a pistol from a house. They all go to a half-finished town home that the boys call their condo and plan a 'picnic with a gun' the next day. Noticing Mr. Sloan's car at his house, Carl plants firecrackers under the hood, which go off as the men are departing, and Sloan's plans are sabotaged.
At the picnic, the kids alternate shooting until the ammunition runs out. Later, Claude tells Carl that Tip sold him the hash, and Cory announces that Tip had recently gotten busted. Under interrogation, Tip admits he told Doberman whom he sold the hash to. When Carl gets home, his mother Sandra forbids him to see his friends and explains that the Rec will be closed until a new counselor can be found to replace Julia, this further angers Carl who swears at his mother and when he leaves, he gets slapped by his father.
The next day, Carl overhears Tip's mother naming her son's assailants. He grabs Richie and they run to Richie's house, where Richie grabs the pistol and the keys to his mom's Bronco. Doberman chases them; they flip the Bronco and split up. After Doberman fires a warning shot, Richie points his unloaded pistol at him and Doberman kills Richie. Carl escapes to the condo, and Cory later meets him there and they spend the night together. The next morning, en route home to grab money, Carl spots and shoots Mark in the shoulder with the BB gun, causing him to crash his dirt bike; the pair argue, then reconcile. Carl goes home, sneaks in and after seeing his mother on the phone discussing a community meeting about the kids at the school occurring that night, flees to the Rec, meeting up with his friends.
Deciding to confront the parents during the meeting, the kids chain the doors and begin lighting fireworks and trashing the school. After beginning to destroy cars in the parking lot, they break open a patrol car and pull out guns, eventually blowing up several cars and starting fires. Police later arrive and the kids flee, with Doberman locating and arresting Carl. Waiting down the road, Mark shoots Doberman's car, causing it to crash into the Rec and catch fire. Carl escapes, leaving the unconscious Doberman inside the car to die in a massive explosion.
The next morning, Carl boards a bus with the other teens involved in the vandalism for their ride to the Hill. As the bus goes beneath an overpass, Carl smiles as he sees Claude, Johnny, and Cory waving down to them.
Cast
* Michael Kramer as Carl Willat
* Matt Dillon as Richie White
* Pamela Ludwig as Cory
* Harry Northup as Sgt. Doberman
* Vincent Spano as Mark Perry
* Tom Fergus as Claude Zachary
* Andy Romano as Fred Willat
* Ellen Geer as Sandra Willat
* Richard Jamison as Cole
* Julia Pomeroy as Julia
Production
The film was inspired by events described in a 1973 'San Francisco Examiner' article entitled "Mousepacks: Kids on a Crime Spree" by Bruce Koon and James A. Finefrock, which reported on young kids vandalizing property in Foster City, California. The middle class planned community had an unusually high level of juvenile crime. Screenwriters Charles S. Haas and Tim Hunter began work shortly after the article's publication, including field research in the town itself where they interviewed some of the kids. Hunter said that the script accurately reflected the article with the exception of a more violent ending.
Orion Pictures helped finance the film; producer George Litto borrowed an additional $1 million. Director Jonathan Kaplan, who was just 30 when hired, took a documentary approach to filming and hired unknown actors. Among them was Matt Dillon, then age 14, whom the filmmakers discovered in a middle school in Westchester County, New York. This was Dillon's feature film debut. Shooting took place over 20 days in 1978 in the Colorado cities of Aurora and Greeley.
Release
Due to the negative publicity surrounding a wave of recent youth gang films such as 'The Warriors' and 'Boulevard Nights', 'Over the Edge' was given a limited theatrical release in 1979. It debuted on May 18, 1979 in eight cities in the United States on a test run basis, with the biggest release in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The film has since gained cult film status. In late 1981, it was shown at "Film at Joseph Papp's Public Theater" as part of "Word of Mouth", a program devoted to films that had been overlooked because of poor marketing or distribution. This screening led to it being listed on critical top-10 lists, and it was favorably reviewed by Vincent Canby at 'The New York Times'. The film then re-emerged in the 1980s with showings on cable, including HBO and a videocassette release in 1989.
Critical response
On review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, 'Over the Edge' has an approval rating of 83% based on 12 critics' reviews.Vincent Canby of 'The New York Times' gave the movie a positive review, stating, "It's to Mr. Kaplan's credit that he makes New Granada look just as boring and alienated to us as it does to the unfortunate children who live there." Roger Ebert said the film's "violent climax is particularly unconvincing," but the movie captures the "feeling of teen-age frustration and paranoia...and the rhythms of teen-age life...how kids talk and feel and yearn, about the maddening sensation of occupying a body with adolescent values but adult emotions." Ebert concluded the film "does an uncanny job of portraying these kids in a recognizable, convincing way." The performances of Dillon, Michael Kramer, and Pamela Ludwig were also praised by critics.
Richard Labont of the 'Ottawa Citizen' wrote, "The strength of 'Over the Edge', and what set it apart...from most of the gang films of the late '70s, was Kaplan's ability to portray more than merely juvenile violence: his kid actors trash their school with the best of them, but the seething reasons for their behavior is discussed and explored and assessed, rather than merely exploited...capturing with discretion and with discernment the anger of suburban sterility and the dependence on the deadening effect of dope."
In a 2000 review for the 'The' 'Austin Chronicle', Mike Emery said the film is "a vibrant depiction of confused teen life." The 'Chicago Reader' wrote, "Director Jonathan Kaplan has a fine feel for the crushing blandness of 'planned communities'the anger that possesses his underage heroes proceeds from a physically oppressive emptiness, represented by rows of hollow town houses and vast, blasted fields. Part wish fulfillment and part social moralizing, the film never resolves its point of view, but a few of the apocalyptic images stay in the mind."
Soundtrack
'Side one'
# "Surrender" Cheap Trick
# "My Best Friend's Girl" The Cars
# "You Really Got Me" Van Halen
# "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace" Cheap Trick
# "Come On (Part 1)" Jimi Hendrix
'Side two'
# "Just What I Needed" The Cars
# "Hello There" Cheap Trick
# "Teenage Lobotomy" Ramones
# "Downed" Cheap Trick
# "All That You Dream" Little Feat
# "Ooh Child" Valerie Carter
In a 1978 interview between Eddie Van Halen and journalist Steve Rosen where the Van Halen guitarist discusses the song "Light Up the Sky," he explained, "Warner Bros. is financing some movie, and they wanted us to write the theme song for it and we were thinking of using that song." While not mentioning the movie by name, Van Halen later describes it as "A neat movie - everyone's going to relate to that. It's high school kids up north in New Granada, some new housing development. They destroy everything, they lock it...they had a PTA meeting, because all the parents were getting together to talk about their problems they were having with all the students and kids destroying the town. And then while all the people were in there, they lock them in, they chain the doors with all the cops inside and stuff. They went out and started smashing the cars and blowing everything up - it was insane...It was supposed to be a true story. So I think maybe the title of that kind of sprung from that. Because it was a real trippy movie, and it would be a good title calling it 'Light Up the Sky.' Because the last scene of the movie was heavy, boy - its just a big flash of flame type of thing." Ultimately, the band opted not to give the song to the film, because Van Halen says in the same interview, "We went and saw a screening of the flick...and it ain't gonna win no Academy Award or nothing." Instead, the song was included on the album 'Van Halen II'.
Legacy
A novelization of the film by Charlie Haas and Tim Hunter was published by Grove Press aongside the film's release. Included in the book are 32 pages of photographs from the shooting of the film. The book is long out of print.Haas, C., & Hunter, T. (1979). Over The Edge. New York: Grove Press.
Director Richard Linklater has said 'Over the Edge' influenced his film 'Dazed and Confused'. 'Over the Edge' also partly inspired the music videos for the songs "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by NirvanaSt. Thomas, Kurt. 'Nirvana: The Chosen Rejects' (2004): 103104 and "Evil Eye" by Fu Manchu.
In 2021, entertainment website 'Yardbarker' named 'Over the Edge' the signature film of the city of Denver.
References
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