Over The Edge — Over The Edge
Over The Edge is a teen drama-come-later crime thriller from the late 1970s. The film is seen as a key Gen X/punk-rock movie, as well as a major influence on the likes of cult film-maker Richard Linklater and Grunge legend Kurt Cobain. Here from Arrow Video is a Blu Ray release of this seen-as cult classic- bringing together a new scan of the film, a new commentary track, and some new/ archive extras.
Appearing in 1979 Over The Edge ( aka On The Edge, Firestreet) was shot in just thirty-six days on location in Colorado. The film was directed by Paris born producer, director, actor Jonathan Kaplan. He had twelve feature film credits to his name, as well as a fair bit of US TV work. His film work went from the likes nurse comedy Night Call Nurses(1972), trucking action drama White Line Fever(1975), family-friendly adventure Sci-fi Project X(1987), and powerful post-rape drama The Accused.
Over The Edge is set in and around New Granada- a new housing community, which is miles away from the crime and issues of the big city- seemingly it’s the perfect place to raise a family. Unfortunately, they forgot the communities kids in its building- meaning the teens are often left to roam the half-built development, looking for mischief and trouble.
The group of six or so teens the film focuses on is lead-up by Carl (Michael Kramer) the son of property developer and the wrong side of the tracks Richie (Matt Dillon in his first film role). From the off the group is involved with drugs, teen sex and petty crime- but it’s all largely harmless. The elders of the community and the local cops decide to focus in on the group, and things quickly escalate. But the films real turning point is when the group find a gun, one of the teens gets shot, and the fight between the teens and their parents become very real – with the film amping up to a finale where the teens really do go wild.
The young cast is largely good and well placed, Kramer is a believable rich kid gone awry, and Dilon is nicely charismatic with his shoulder-length hair and ragged waistcoat look. Other worthy mentions teen wise are flop-haired and laid back teen drug dealer Claude( Tom Fergus), and skating boarding shade wearing mute Johnny(Tiger Thompson). With memorable adults been Harry Northup as the constantly push against the teens' cop Doberman, and Andy Romano as Carls Father Fred- who has a well-played character arc. The film is soundtracked by a mix of classic 70s rock, taking in the likes of Cheap Trick, Ramones and Van Halen, and an overtly big/ grand orchestrated score.
On the whole, I must say I was somewhat underwhelmed by Over The Edge- the thing is it sells itself as an edgy teen crime drama, with attitude. And in reality, it’s rather of a PG ride- sure we have kids smoking/ been busted for drugs, and general mischief- but it’s all rather tame, with the whole thing playing mostly like a teen drama for much of its runtime. It’s only in its last quarter there seems some sort of true danger/ edge, and even then it still feels tame- this reissue has been given an 18 cert on it’s a reissue, and I really don’t understand why. The other negative here is the overblown orchestrated score, which is really at odds with the 70 rock songs, and largely just feels too much. On the positive side of things- it’s well-acted, and when the teens do ‘go over the edge’ some of the mayhem they cause is well-realized, it’s just a pity that lacks any real punch or grit.
Moving onto this new Blu Ray- and first up we get a high Definition 1080p, this brings out the 70’s pallet in a nice punchy and balanced manner. On the new extras front, we get a new commentary track with lead actor Michael Kramer and journalist Mike Sacks- this is nicely insightful, as Kramer moves from discussing how he got the part, his fellow actors and how many of them had done little or no acting beforehand. They move onto discuss how many of the child actors were from the New York area, and how it was acting in Colorado due to its changing climate. They talk about how they interacted with children extras from the local area, on set stories and much more. Next, we have Wide Streets + Narrow Minds- a new seven-part doc about the film- this runs for a total of one hour and twenty minutes, and it features a good selection of interviews with the cast and crew- once again a most insightful/ interesting extra. Moving onto the archive side of things, and we get another commentary track- this is with director Jonathan Kaplan, producer George Litto and writers Tim Hunter & Charlie Haas. We have cast/ crew Q&A from the 2010 screening of the film, and a good selection of other stuff. The first pressing of this release comes with an Illustrated collectors' booklet featuring new writing by Kim Morgan and Henry Blyth, and the original San Francisco Examiner article that inspired the film.
I guess how much you get from/ enjoy Over The Edge is down to what your expecting- if you're looking for an edgy and gritty teen crime drama, you're going to be disappointed. Though if you're after for a well made, well-acted PG teen drama, with some later lite crime thriller touches you’ll enjoy what we have here. As always Arrow has done a good job with this reissue, so no criticisms of that.