September 5, 2009
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Over the Edge, 1979, Written by Charles S. Haas and Tim Hunter. Directed by Jonathan Kaplan. With Matt Dillon, Pamela Ludwig, Michael Eric Kramer, Vincent Spano, and Tom Fergus.
Yuppie parents move their families away from the inner city to a Utopian planned community, and turn it into what they tried to escape from by neglecting their teenage children.
Over the Edge fills the gap between American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused. However, it is a much darker satire, and should resonate with many viewers who were in junior high school in the late 1970's.
In a planned, upper middle class subdivision, parents transport their impressionable teenagers to an all-white suburban school to shield them from crumbling urban social infrastructures. Assuming that their parental obligations have been thusly fulfilled, they subsequently abandon their parenting duties to the local school and community center -with disastrous consequences.
The kids engage in teenage shenanigans which quickly escalate to illicit drug use, dope dealing, sex, vandalism and finally all out riotous street violence. Rather than being a moralistic cautionary tale, it is a matter-of-fact indictment of of the hippie generation's permissive parenting styles and serves as a portrait of many similar communities at the time.
The theme is black comedy with a strong grain of truth. I know people from the generation in which the delinquents are portrayed, who claim emphatically that the school and neighborhood depicted in the film mirror their own experiences with frightening accuracy. The ending is literally explosive.
While the picture is a bit dated and tame by today's standards, it provides a realistic glimpse into one segment of the teenage delinquent world as it existed at the time. The themes remain valid. Over the Edge features Matt Dillon's commercial film debut.
BACKSTORY:
Screenwriter Charlie Haas,( Tex, Gremlins 2, and Matinee) wrote a journalistic piece for The San Francisco Examiner entitled "Mouse Packs: Kids On A Crime Spree." The feature was about a planned community in northern California called Foster City, which was experiencing an alarmingly escalating juvenile crime rate. His article caught co-writer TIm Hunter's attention and the two carefully researched the premise before writing the script. (1.)
(1. "Motion/Captured Must-See: 'Over The Edge' " by Drew McWeeny, www.hitflix.com)
On Warner Home Video DVD.
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