Tuff Turf

Scenes from the class war in LA. Preppy rebel Morgan (Spader) goes head to perfectly sculpted head with high school toughs, even hitting on the gang leader's best girl. Morgan's father gets in the way of a bullet as the feud escalates to a messy climax. Traces of Romeo and Juliet - or at least West Side Story - surface elsewhere in Kiersch's films, notably Under the Boardwalk. The intensity of the melodrama here is undermined by a camp-ish turn from Robert Downey Jr as Morgan's leathered friend and by risible musical outbursts from Spader and Kim Richards.