River's Edge (1986)
Director: Tim Hunter
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Kicking off with an overweight and slobbish teenager (Roebuck) sitting dispassionately next to the naked corpse of the girl he's just murdered, this raw picture of the lost generation tackles thorny issues of responsibility and loyalty: will the psycho killer's peers remain true to their (lack of) ideals, or turn fink and risk retribution? In Hunter's smalltown hell, the dilemma is not easily dealt with: on the one hand, Roebuck's barely motivated act of violence escalates beyond fun into nightmare territory; on the other, society is truly fucked - why bother saving it? - with the kids gripped by the baleful influence of the dope-dealin', gun-totin', mannequin doll-lovin' Feck (Hopper, excessively indulged). For all its uncompromising toughness, the film, like the kids, gets out of hand, its bleak portrait of alienated, antisocial behaviour increasingly wrecked by hysterical performances (Glover especially), a sentimental teen-romance subplot, and melodramatic contrivance. There are some good, frightening scenes of volatile lunacy, but the whole thing badly lacks a controlling distance and perspective; much inferior to Hunter's script for Jonathan Kaplan's superficially similar Over the Edge, it continually teeters on the verge of self- parody.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Tim Hunter
Producer: Sarah Pillsbury, Midge Sanford
Cast: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye Leitch, Daniel Roebuck, Dennis Hopper, Joshua Miller, Roxana Za full cast
Duration: 100 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Ang Lee talks 'Taking Woodstock'
Ang Lee talks to Tom Huddleston about his tale of the men behind history’s greatest music festival
Hippies who work for The Man
To celebrate George Clooney comedy 'The Men who Stare at Goats', we look back at six memorable onscreen hippies who fought the system from within
Roland Emmerich's guide to disaster movies
Ahead of the release of '2012', Roland Emmerich offers his ten tips on creating the perfect global catastrophe
Grant Heslov: interview
Grant Heslov, director of 'The Men who Stare at Goats' talks about his old pal George Clooney, his interest in the paranormal, and his fond memories of working on 'Happy Days'
The Coen brothers discuss 'A Serious Man'
Masters of contrary comedy, Joel and Ethan Coen have struck gold again with their latest, ‘A Serious Man’
Ten inspirations behind 'Avatar'?
Time Out ponders the influences behind James Cameron's anticipated space-opera on the basis of the trailer
Michael Haneke: The man behind the menace
From Cannes to Munich to London, Dave Calhoun tours Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner, 'The White Ribbon'
How Jane Campion brought John Keats back to life
Time Out gets Romantic with the ‘difficult’ New Zealander about her new film, 'Bright Star'
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations











What do you think?
Post your review now