Over the Edge (film)

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Over the Edge
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jonathan Kaplan
Written by	Charles S. Haas Tim Hunter
Produced by	George Litto
Starring	Michael Kramer Matt Dillon Pamela Ludwig Vincent Spano Harry Northup Tom Fergus
Cinematography	Andrew Davis
Edited by	Robert Barrere
Music by	Sol Kaplan
Production company	Orion Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	May 18, 1979 (1979-05-18)
Running time	95 min.
Country	United States
Language	English

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.

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[]

Background[]

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.^[1][2] 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, using 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 two Colorado cities, Aurora and Greeley.^[1] In 2021, an entertainment website named Over the Edge the “signature film” of Denver.^[3]

Alongside the film's release, a novelization of the film by Charlie Haas and Tim Hunter, was also published by Grove Press. Included in the book are 32 pages of photographs from the shooting of the film. The book is long out of print.^[4]

Due to the negative publicity surrounding a wave of recent youth gang films such as The Warriors and Boulevard Nights, Over the Edge had a limited theatrical release in 1979. However, 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 a program called "Word of Mouth", 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 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. Director Richard Linklater said it influenced his film Dazed and Confused.^[1] Over the Edge partly inspired the music videos for the songs "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana^[5] and "Evil Eye" by Fu Manchu.^[6]

Soundtrack album[]

Side one

1. "Surrender" – Cheap Trick
2. "My Best Friend's Girl" – The Cars
3. "You Really Got Me" – Van Halen
4. "Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace" – Cheap Trick
5. "Come On (Part 1)" – Jimi Hendrix

Side two

1. "Just What I Needed" – The Cars
2. "Hello There" – Cheap Trick
3. "Teenage Lobotomy" – Ramones
4. "Downed" – Cheap Trick
5. "All That You Dream" – Little Feat
6. "Ooh Child" – Valerie Carter

Note: In a "lost interview" between Eddie Van Halen and journalist Steve Rosen, when the Van Halen guitarist was discussing the song "Light Up the Sky," he explained that "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."^[7] While not mentioning the movie by name, later in the interview he 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 true, too. 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 - it’s just a big flash of flame type of thing."^[8] 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."^[9] Instead, the song was included on the album Van Halen II.

Reception[]

Over the Edge is Orion's second release and was released May 18, 1979 in eight cities in the United States on a test run basis with the biggest release in Charlotte, North Carolina.^[10]

It received critical acclaim. 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."^[11]

References[]

External links[]

• Over the Edge at IMDb
• Over the Edge at AllMovie
• Over the Edge at Rotten Tomatoes
• Over the Edge at the American Film Institute Catalog
• An interview with co-writer Tim Hunter