Eugene Martin's fine indie film EDGE CITY is based on the real life beating and death of Eddie Polleck, who unfortunately met his fate the same way as one of the this movie's characters. It is a film that has yet to find a national distributor yet has played at film festivals across the country and is now showing at one theater in Philadelphia. It's a good enough film with flaws that probably can't get distributed because of the timeliness of the children and violence theme.
EDGE CITY is an ensemble piece about what happens when a rumor is horribly twisted around. Two Jersey girls have Coke thrown onto them by three Philly kids. As they tell people about it, this minor incident turns into groping, attempted rape, and full-on rape. As the movie builds up, so does the rumor. We see the lives of both the Philly kids and the Jersey kids. The Philly kids we focus on, mainly on the character of James, just go about their business. James and his brother Bobby try to keep their alcoholic father together by working with him at the local supermarket.
Meanwhile, in Jersey, a girl named Cherie, who drinks her way through her father's remarriage, is the girl who has Coke thrown on her. When she tells her friends, it gets around that what was once a mere practical joke has been twisted into a deadly serious topic. Her friends get ready for a rumble that ultimately the innocent James and Bobby become the center of.
EDGE CITY is a nicely made picture but it is not perfect. While it is superior than Larry Clark's horrible KIDS, it tends to lapse into KIDS territory: letting white kids talk like black kids for too long of a time and letting the dialogue get so out of hand that you soon realize that no one talks like that, even when they're joking. Also, the device of the jump cut within scenes is WAY overused in the first half hour of the movie, with the cuts being jarring and misused than artistic and crafty. And the script too often veers into Afterschool Special territory, i.e. rich girl falls in love with poor boy and he can't accept it, snobby girl is really anorexic, drinks too much, and hates her stepmom, etc.).
However, the fine performances from the cast hold down this film. Charlie Hofheimer is excellent as the doomed hero James, giving a quiet, sentimental coolness to his character that few could pull off. Heather Gottlieb transcends the material for her character, giving a usual Afterschool special character an original turn, making us actually care for her. The rest of the cast, full of local Philadelphia kids, work well together and make the story believable, even when it is not.
All in all, a film that needs to be seen, needs a distributor, and needs a national release. Wake up, you ill-minded Hollywood studios, and pick this little gem up. It's not perfect, but it is one of the better indie films of the last few years.
Rating: B
