Over the Edge (1979)
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Cast
as Richie
as Carl
as Cory
as Mark
as Sandra Willat
as Roy Sloane
as Fred Willat
as Doberman
as Cole
as Claude
as Julia
as Johnny
as Young Thug
as Abby
as Tip
Critic Reviews for Over the Edge
All Critics (9) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (8) | Rotten (1) | DVD (3)
Script, photography and performances (including Dillon before he decided to become a teenage Stallone) are all top notch, while Kaplan directs with pace, imagination, and a fine ear for dialogue and music.
It's to Mr. Kaplan's credit that he makes New Granada look just as boring and alienating to us as it does to the unfortunate children who live there.
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.
Planned suburbia, teenage wasteland
Jonathan Kaplan's engaging exploitation nightmarish generation gap film is effective and honest.
If you were born around the same time as Matt Dillon, this period piece will amaze you with its attention to detail
Audience Reviews for Over the Edge
A masterpiece of youth rebellion. It is not technically new (unlike Lucas's American Graffiti) or anything, but has a strong message, full of unforgettable scenes (especially Mat Dillon on his bicycle running through suburbia), and captures the atmosphere of late 70s very well (I guess, since I was not born). Very recommendable.
Too violent. Teens get in trouble and go on a destructive rampage. I don't know what message this film was going for, but it was lost on me. It was all just a muddled and empty mess. (First and only viewing - 2/23/2016)
Over the Edge (1979) -- [8.0] -- The teenagers of a sterile suburban experiment turn to drugs and violence as they rebel against cops, teachers, parents and city planners in "Over the Edge." This is a surprisingly dark, character-driven coming of age story featuring terrific performances from Matt Dillon (his first film) and Michael Kramer. While the kids are the protagonists, I appreciate that neither the kids nor the adults are painted as purely good or evil. The real enemy is the generation gap. Most other movies of this kind force a pat ending or reconciliation. Not so here -- the climax is (literally) explosive and the ending swims in a believable pathos. What I especially love about the movie is its barren, southwest setting. The kids live in a cookie-cutter housing development project, surrounded by half-built homes with dead grass as far as the eye can see. It adds to the film's pervasive feeling of oppressive isolation. In twilight scenes at the edge of town you can see the headlights of cars on a far-off interstate. The film succeeds so well in creating its claustrophobia, that this interstate might as well be the shores of Avalon.
Over the Edge Quotes
| Ed Doberman: | uh huh, how big is this blade White? |
| Richie White: | 3 inches, almost as big as your dick... |
| Richie White: | You guy's got a lot of laws right? Well I only got one law: a kid who tells on another kid is a dead kid. |