User reviews

John Evens Jr. High School in Greeley Colorado had a casting call prior to the filming for extras. If I remember right we got 25 dollars for each days work and we got fed.

Greeley was pretty much the perfect place for this movie. There was a huge teen violence problem there. even at age 12 I carried a pistol and roamed the city at will with other kids fearing attack from gangs of older teens. Drugs were everywhere.

The movie captured all that stupidity plus the Apathy and ignorance of the adults. I loved the scenes where we rioted in the Circus tent styled John Evens Jr. High School......made it hard to attend class the following year.

History has proved that the film makers knew what kind of society America would become...Cookie cutter homes,strip malls and teen murderers......Art predicts life.

...and a bit obvious to at least me as a viewer. Why can't the parents see what is going on if I can see it from just about frame one and one outsider says the whole problem in one sentence clearly stated as he speeds away from town? The locale is one of those HOA standalone developments in the prairie that was built from end to end as a planned community. The location is never mentioned. The filming was done in Aurora,Colorado, but it appears to be possibly an exoburb of a large city in California (LA/SF/SD??) that is far enough away from the city that urban criminals will not be hanging around, and if they do will stick out like a non-white thumb, yet close enough that "dad" can still commute. This film was made at the tail end of an era in which the majority of wives stayed at home while dad trudged to work every morning. All of the apartments look alike. All of the houses look alike. The high school looks like a prison and seemingly has no history or traditions and is named after the development for which it was formed - New Granada.

There are tennis courts and other amenities for the adults. The problem? There is absolutely NOTHING for the children to do. There is one lone recreation center, but it only has a few pool tables so the kids get together there and share their collective bad habits. Predictably as the children turn into teens they dabble in alcohol, drugs, bored heavy petting and sex, vandalism, and pranks that could turn dangerous - shooting a bee-bee gun at a cop car from an overpass and setting up fireworks to go off underneath cars.

The parents treat the kids like they are some other species. Every incident sparks a reaction from the adults that just makes the kids more rebellious and bored - stay away from your friends! Close down that rec center, it is nothing but a breeding ground for trouble! We need a 9PM curfew! etc. You just want to shake these people and say "Get a grip! These are YOUR kids! How would you feel in this environment? This is not The Village of the Damned!" Then a gun gets into the hands of the teens. They practice shooting cans, they like the power it gives them, then they get into trouble playing a practical joke with it, the cops join chase, and one kid ends up dead. The kid's gun - unloaded at the time.

This causes a final scene that just goes a bit too wild for 1979 suburban kids. It seems like the director said - to quote the film Ed Wood - "I want the film to end with a big explosion". I'll let you watch and find out what happens.

If I have any other criticism at all it is that, although they talk about what they don't want, I never hear enough about what the kids DO want. They never seem quite humanized enough for me in spite of numerous scenes of conversation between each other. However, it is good seeing later talent developing at a young age - Matt Dillon and Vincent Spano in particular. I'd recommend it.

Further than the imagery of white, middle-class American kids and teenagers getting high, speaking in an acquired voice and lingo to convey a both tastefully silly and unsettling angst, there's a visualization of America in Jonathan Kaplan's appealing, outlandish generation gap exploitation film that's anything but silly, and by now has basically become the norm. The details of the plot aren't all that essential. We're expected to grasp a sentiment of adolescent frustration and suspicion.

The locale is New Granada, one of those depressingly vanilla suburban districts that emerged all over this country in an upsurge of real-estate guesswork and substandard urban planning in the '60s and early '70s. New Granada is a development of dull condos, rigorously serviceable apartment blocks for those who cannot meet the expense of the condos, streets that bend futilely into badlands still to be urbanized, and an ultra-modern high school that seems like it's been built yesterday to accommodate tomorrow's automatons. It's the assertion of the filmmakers that the planners of New Granada made a grave gaffe in not bearing in mind that a quarter of its population would be 15 years old or younger, with nowhere to go except an old Quonset hut used as a rec center, nothing to consider and, most terrible, nothing to do.

The hub of the film is Carl, an ultimately good 15-year-old boy whose dad, a Cadillac dealer, frets more about selling than about where the kids are, before or after 10pm. Provoked by the case of his more experienced pal Richie, played by Matt Dillon, who auditioned for the role while skipping school, Carl starts to embrace the scornful, tough-guy characteristics of the rest of New Granada's youth, most of whom are on drugs of one kind or another. Carl keeps away from drugs but not danger. New Granada's fanatical policeman, Doberman, discriminatorily blames Carl and Richie for a practical joke perpetrated by two other troublemakers. Like a New Granada street, Carl's life doesn't seem to be progressing.

Doberman's jumpy shooting of one of Carl's friends induces the film's furious climax: The New Granada youth charge the high school, where their parents are holding an urgent assembly to argue property values and teenage crime, lock their parents into the school auditorium, and go on a huge sabotage binge. There's something unluckily amusing in the image of a smug child, who looks to be no more than 12, talking about scoring some hash for his friends, and about the quandary of another, just as young student who stumbles into an art class, having taken some LSD to begin the day, just to be faced with a projection of a Bosch painting.

The movie can't help idealizing its generally stupid teenagers, their incoherent yearnings and doubts, their disheartenment and, ultimately, their fuming revolt. Not including Carl and Richie, the youngsters aren't characters but a refrain of postures. Unlike other such films, however, this independent suburban wasteland drama dramatizes the tedium and futility of their world with exceptional sincerity. New Granada is a virtually unspoiled visual symbol of the incorporated obsolescence that's expected to perpetuate the American economy, but which makes crap faster than the crap can be used. If New Granada's kids are apathetic robots, they're only a spot more offensive and less self-righteous than their ignorant parents.

I suppose, the performances by the grown-ups in the film, particularly by Andy Romano and Ellen Geer, as Carl's parents, and by Harry Northup, as the harrying Doberman, are more effective than those of the younger actors, but both Kramer and Dillon are equal as Carl and Richie. Pamela Ludwig, who plays Carl's girlfriend, is super-hot. A great deal of Over the Edge is gawkily acted and motivated, but it's executed with such vibrancy and disquiet that, as you watch it, you're often caught halfway between an embarrassed laugh and a struggle for breath.

I first saw the movie when it opened in the spring of 1980, on a double bill with "Little Darlings". I ended up seeing it twice. I was the age of the kids in the film at the time, and my bull***t detector didn't go off once during the course of watching this film. The kids were real, the words natural and unaffected, and the whole thing about the boredom that is so prevailing when you're a teenager was right on the money. I remember as I watched the movie thinking that the clothes the kids were wearing looked worn just enough, like they had come out of the actors' own closets. Matt Dillon's first movie - I read that he auditioned for the part as something to do while he skipped school for a day. He reminded me utterly of my then high school boyfriend, right down to the voice, clothes and cocky attitude. The music was exactly what me and all my friends were listening to - Cheap Trick (the earlier, not-played-on-the-radio songs) and the Cars. Ok, so perhaps it was a little unrealistic at parts, and the soundtrack could have done without the Valerie Carter song, but wow, what a great little movie. Rent a copy, go home, slap it in your vcr, and get out your bong and a couple of beers. You won't be dissapointed, not even a little bit.

Did the film makers depict a place, time, and sociological phenomenon accurately? Yes. But it wasn't balanced. You don't meet any good kids, and you don't meet any fully engaged parents.

Yet in any town, there will be plenty of kids who use their time constructively, and parents who love them and teach them good values. Surely some of those families would have been involved with church, youth sports, scouting, or 4H, etc.

Shooting a police car's front window while it's on the highway is not an act of heroism. Yet the whole movie essentially revolves around covering up this act, and glorifying it all.

Yes the absentee parents are partially to blame for their kids' nihilistic attitudes. But are we really sure that the kids would have listened to them, even if they were more engaged? Some people are just evil, and Junior High is the time when it first comes out most profoundly.

There is nothing inherently wrong with fresh 1970's planned suburban communities. They are what you make of them.

These kids seem to have no sense of connection to their country, their state, their town, their school, their families, or their God. Again, the parents are to blame for some of that. However, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

But this is a movie, not a doctoral thesis. The location choice, the soundtrack usage, particularly the final "Ooh Child" song, and the line about the irony of escaping the city so that the kids wouldn't go bad, and then having them go bad anyways, were quite effective.

But when people say they loved this "cult classic," is it because it was well made, or because they identify with the kids? I do not identify with them, and I was there. I despised them when I was there. I've also noticed that to some degree, the rest of life is just a reenactment of the teen years.

There are the adults that have affairs, bully employees, abuse substances, and cheat on their taxes, and those who pursue a more wholemome track. In popular culture, we still admire the amoral rebel, or even the savage. Be it in Fast and Furious, rap music, or Ultimate Fighting.

The real lesson of the film is what happens when the evil inclination of a human dominates their soul, and is allowed to run amok.

The kids are not all right in New Granada!

This film very accurately portrays what life was really like for many teenagers who lived in the suburbs during the 1970s.

Growing up, my own life was very much like those of the teens in this movie: I was a teenager in the mid-70s and I lived in exactly the same sort of constantly under-development, suburban wasteland where whole mobs of kids were pretty much left to their own devices by parents who were too busy chasing the American Dream to notice what we were really up to; a place where there was easy access to lots and lots of cheap drugs and alcohol, and where boredom reigned supreme (remember, these were the days before the Internet, VCRs, or even home video games).

If you were ever rebellious and grew up during the same time period and in the same sort of suburban community, then I guarantee that virtually every character in this movie will remind you of someone you knew back then (maybe even yourself!).

I first saw this years ago on cable, and thought it was slightly overdone. Fast forward to today, and the case of Tyler Hadley in Port St. Lucie, FL, who killed his parents so he could throw the best house party ever. (His parents spent the party in their bedroom, dead.) The articles written about it stressed the kids desensitized to violence because of how little there was for kids to do in town except do drugs and commit crimes. Sound familiar? I couldn't help but think of this movie, and how they got it right more than they got it wrong. Do yourself a favor and search this one out. It's well worth it.

I generally dislike teen movies. Mainly because they're so unrealistic, romanticized versions of high school and teen life. Usually featuring a bunch of stereotypes and some dumb, superficial plot. "Over the Edge," hovever, is one of the few teen movies that actually gets it right.

The movie focuses on a bunch of teens living in the boring, lifeless town of New Granada. A place with with nothing to do. No mall, no movie theaters, not even a fast food place. Nothing to give them somewhere to go or something to do. The adults in the movie can't be bothered with them and are more interested in bringing people into New Granada and developing the town rather than meet the needs of the town's youth. This makes the teens restless and bored and they resort to drugs, guns and crime to keep them occupied. The also misbehave in school and frustrate their teachers.

The local authorities try setting up a curfew, holding meetings and assemblies, and even shut down the local recreation center which provided the teens the only place they can go for fun and social contact. All the while overlooking the real source of the problem. The local sherrif who occasionally harasses the kids (often unfairly) only adds to the problem. The frustration finally builds and builds until the movie's destructive climax.

Based on a true incident, "Over the Edge" is a film which, unlike most teen movies, deals with more weighty topics than who's taking who to the prom. This is a much more realistic portrayal of teen life than "Sixteen Candles" or "Can't Hardly Wait." While the movie brings its message across, it does so without comming across as preachy.

I'm also amazed at how prophetic this movie ended up being, gieven the recent shootings at Littleton. The nation's media and politicians put the blame on the entertainment industry (movies, TV, videogames, etc.) and are overlooking the real cause of what happened. This is very much like the adults in "Over the Edge." Closing down the rec center and setting up a curfew didn't make the problem go away because they had nothing to do with the cause of the problem. In fact, they just made things worse.

"Over the Edge" is a well made and underrated film that sadly rings just as true now as it did in 1979. The next time someone tells you that "The Breakfast Club" is the greatest teen movie ever, show them this movie and set them straight.

Over The Edge is a 1979 coming of age crime drama about a town full of board rebellious teenagers looking for a good time any way they can find it. But when one of their own is killed by the town's police Sergeant they decide to take action.

I had never heard of this movie before until recently, but was very glad I did because it's a pretty good film. The story was intriguing and had authentic characters with a great cast behind them that really helped deliver the story home. Jonathan Kaplan's direction was good and captured quite nicely the frustration and angst that small town living can bring to a young teen with nothing to do.

Although maybe not for everybody I really enjoyed this movie and if you haven't seen it before, I would recommend giving it a watch.

This was a teen movie that wasn't a 'teen' movie.

The best thing about this was how it showed that the parents imagined need to raise their kids in a sanitized environment can lead to mind-numbing boredom. Then to petty crime. Then to worse. But at the same time, the kids weren't made out to be these confused little angels either. You sympathized with them while knowing they needed to take responsibility.

Matt Dillion's debut is also his best film.

Most of the young actors were inexperienced. Some of them haven't been seen since. But they all still did a HELL of a job. Why isn't Michael Kramer better known? He was brilliant.

The one complaint I can come up with was some of the parents emotional overacting. Great film though.

This film in it's day was pretty controversial. Most of the acting is terrible with a few bright spots. However the message still holds true to the more modern age. A message movie before Harmony Korine was even in kindergarden, this movie underlines how modern adults largely ignore the problems kids have growing up in a bigger faster society. Pretty good movie. Definately better than Kids with about the same attempted shock value.

Despite the melodramatic ending this film is very realistic and thoughtful. This is Matt Dillon's first movie and he is very natural and believable. Because the film was shot on location it had a fantastic look and feel. If you want to know what it felt like being a young teenager in 1979 or even now, then rent this film.

I saw this movie decades ago, but today I was watching a documentary about Kurt Cobain, and he brought up this movie. He loved it, and said he really identified with it.

I wonder how many people have now watched it because of him?

New Granada is a friendly suburban community with spacious living facilities, nice folks...and misunderstood youths? I don't get it. Are we really supposed to feel sorry for these kids? Should we let them just run rampant in the streets? They are obviously some very bad kids who deserve what they had coming to them. I don't care how bored you are, you don't go waving a gun around in front of a cop or else you get shot. And how was he supposed to know the thing was loaded anyway? They make the cop out to be the villain and the "misguided youths" the heroes. The only good part of the movie was Matt Dillon, whom you may know from Crash(2004), or for his poignant portrayal of Dallas Winston in The Outsiders(1983).

With all of today's problems plaguing teens and their parents, this movie may seem a bit tame, but at the time of its release, it had a pretty powerful message (assuming anyone paid attention). I remember watching this with some kids who were about the same age as those portrayed in the movie... These kids all thought this was the best movie ever made, and some commented that they wanted to do pretty much everything they saw in the movie. I remember thinking (not unlike "Billy Jack"), "why would you want to live in a community like this, where all the adults either hate you or fear you? To this day, I am drawn to and repulsed by this movie. That being said, I can't wait to get copy of this on DVD!!! It really was a good film, and I think it captured some of uglier realities of life in some of the "planned communities" of the time.

Okay I will agree that teenagers will do some really stupid and senseless things when listening to peer pressure and at the same time, just trying to be noticed and maybe create their own unique personalities. Such is the case with this 1979 film Over the Edge. At the same time, the film also touches on some of the teenagers' parents' own issues and financial pressures. Put it all together the teenagers peer pressure, family homelife issues, and raging hormones and it will push some kids "over the edge".

The dramatic background music could have been extracted from any one of a thousand different TV drama/crime series released in the 1960s and 1970s which actually took away from the storyline about kids getting into trouble with drastic consequences, and maybe even leading to death(s)

I wouldn't call the film a memorable or classic film, although it did provide a platform for a very young 15-year-old Matt Dillon to rise to stardom. It's worth a watch during the late-night film review, but nothing more. I give the film a ho hum 6 out of 10 IMDb rating.

I first saw this in the early 90s on a vhs n loved the film then and still now. This movie is still very relevant.

Revisited it recently.

This movie is very powerful n realistic n at times very scary inspite of it being a non horror film.

Most of the characters in this movie will remind you of someone you knew while growing up.

The story is about bored n neglected kids who turn to drinking, drugs n vandalism while the adults n police are relentlessly curbing the kids through a 9:30 pm curfew rather than understanding the root causes.

New Granada is a pretty dull town. All the kids like to hangout at the local recreational center. Of course the kids do all the typical things that teenagers like to do. Local police officer Doberman is an over zealous cop. He's always looking to bust the kids for something.

When a local car dealer is showing some land that it is up for sale, he has Doberman shut down the recreational center. He busts one of the kids for drugs and the other kids try and stir him up. One local teen, played by Matt Dillon gets shot by officer Doberman. Carl witnessed the incident and runs away. The local cops and some of the adults hold a town meeting in the school. The youth revolt, locking the adults in the school and destroy much of the school and everyone's cars.

Over the Edge is a wild movie. There's a killer soundtrack filled with Cheap Trick tunes.

Living in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do, the bored and disaffected teenagers of a poorly resourced planned community are eventually driven to revolt against the oppressive adult population in this searing drama written by Tim Hunter, who also helmed the similarly themed 'River's Edge' a few years later. The film tackles a very real issue that, with urban sprawl all around the world, still exists today: families lured into cheap housing in new communities that are improperly resourced to handle energetic adolescents. Indeed, while the parents of the film come under scrutiny for not understanding their kids and how boxed up they feel, the poor planning of the town is really the villain of the piece. It takes a long time for the film to make its point though, and with the revolt only occurring in the final third of the movie, there are a lot of repetitive scenes of the teens trying to score drugs, pick up girls and evade the sadistic police to firstly endure. The antagonism between the police and teenagers is a little undercooked too; while all the teens believe that the cops are hell-bent on power and tend to overreact, it is hard to blame the police for being like that if the teenagers do actually constantly vandalise their cars and create public nuisances for no good reason. Unless, of course, boredom is a reason, and say what one may about the film, the movie deftly shows the power of boredom to lead to mischief. Topped off with a mood-setting, eerie score by Sol Kaplan (of 'Niagara' fame), it is a haunting experience that lingers in the mind too.

I was the same age as the characters when this movie came out. For some reason I never got to see it. I don't even remember it coming out. If I had seen this movie when I was fourteen years old, it would have been the greatest movie I had ever seen. Watching it all these years later, it's still a great movie. It's a beautifully acted, emotional movie. "Over the Edge" grabbed me right away. I loved every minute of it. I can't wait to see it again.

In iconic 1979 teen-rebellion flick "Over The Edge" a fictional new-build community fails to plan for 25% of its population being kids (the moral of the story) so those bored kids (including Matt Dillon (on his movie debut) & Michael Eric Kramer) get into drugs, vandalism... and, uh, shooting at moving cop cars with a bb gun. Tensions between the cops (led by Harry Northup) & the kids understandably rise, to eventually go 'over the edge' (duh)... when poop really kicks off. As well as Dillon, director Jonathan Kaplan went on to bigger things, as did debuting writers Charles S Haas & Tim Hunter (co-writing "Tex" for example) but this one will always be a cult classic of theirs.

After reading reviews, both here on Amazon and elsewhere, I was expecting much from this film. And, whilst it undoubtedly stirred impassioned emotions for many, it left me rather more questioning than sympathetic.

Maybe I'm just too middle-aged now, to really take the side of rebellious youths who then go on to, well, riot. With the riots over here last Summer appalling all but the perpetrators I'm afraid I wasn't hugely moved by their angst. Sure, I can understand the boredom and frustration of youth but I, myself was brought up on a farm and so there was always work and things to do when I was their age and so didn't suffer with that particular affliction.

I didn't mind their dalliance with drugs, at least as far as the film was concerned; that seemed very natural and added interest and I think it was these elements that bumped the certificate up to 18. The soundtrack may have appealed to those who liked those bands, they were before my time, at least in '79, when the film was released, so I can't even say that the music was great.

The young cast is undoubtedly the movie's strong point and much praise has been made on Matt Dillon's debut role. Again, maybe because of my now tender age, I found the politics and economics of it all that were causing all the social problems rather more interesting than that of the youths, which could be a bit worrying!

Despite what I've said about not fully appreciating Over the Edge, it is a good film and well made and I hope that when I come to see it again, sometime, I'll get into it more.