After reading Roger Ebert's three-star review and reflecting on the small, overengineered, oversafe communities I have borne witness to, I no longer trust the man's opinion. Or that of anyone who rates this film in a positive fashion, for that matter. As the summary says, this film takes a serious social problem, that of small towns boxing their young citizens in and sentencing to what is little more than a life in prison, and cheapens it. As any autistic individual living in a community where there is inadequate or no support for their needs will tell you, and this happens to include many urban environments by the way, there are plenty who would give their eye to see a serious, explorative depiction of the manner in which those rustic communities we are led to believe are so happy should carry warnings on their town limits that only the fit and healthy can expect the hype to be met. Okay, that was a painfully long sentence, and I apologise, but the film is as deep as a puddle, and the problem it is based around is like an ocean.
About the only film's redeeming virtue is a moderated, gentle performance by Matt Dillon. The rest of the cast scream and babble their way through roles that give them less than a whole dimension to work with. The Springtime For Hitler play depicted in The Producers is less farcical. Equally problematic are the adults in this situation. While it is to be expected that a lot of the adult figures in town are going to think the problem will just float away if they rule over the youth with an iron fist, most people over the age of twenty have developed enough of a sense of realism. About the only line in the film that makes any sense is when Lane Smith tells one of the overlords that they have effectively turned their children into the very thing they moved out of civilisation to get away from. And that is what makes this whole thing ironic. These teens are revolting not because their fathers will not buy them a car when they turn sixteen or some petty thing like that. They are revolting because they are being denied their most basic rights, including equal protection under the law. Which makes it all the more insulting, how cheapening the film is.
Not that the youths are any better as characters than are the adults. Matt Dillon does a great job as a focal point for any empathy, but the rest of the young cast are as disagreeable as the adult cast. With the apparent lack of any organised solidarity in these youths, it beggars belief that they are able to organise well enough to hold the adults hostage in the school late in the story. Making matters even worse is that Charles Haas and Jonathan Kaplan are unable to resist the urge to turn this into an action film, with shotgun blasts causing multiple cars to explode in flames. Granted, insulting film physics were not as common in 1979 as they are now, but even asking us to believe that a seventeen year old (at most) can get his hands on a shotgun just pushes us over the edge. Pardon the pun. Even more insulting is how the situation is depicted with the police able to violate the teens' rights against illegal search and seizure or home invasion as if this happens to every white-bread teenager. One must think the police in this town moved from an area like California and became frustrated at the lack of any apparently autistic teens to violate.
Haas also crossed the line when he tried earlier to exaggerate a real-life incident into a news story, upon which he based the screenplay. I am not sure how easy it would be to find any of the teens who were involved in the real incident, but I suspect they would have the same thing to say about Haas' writings as L. Ron Hubbard's son had to say about ninety-five percent of what Hubbard wrote regarding his life. Namely, that it was utterly false. And therein lies the rub. Even upon initial release, I cannot believe that anyone who saw this film took it seriously. In the absence of any reason to take it seriously, this film only serves to polarise the subject and take the place of any serious discussion. I happen to feel that in years to come especially, those who live in communities like the one in this film are going to be hit the worst when the economics of transport become increasingly unviable.
I gave Over The Edge a two out of ten. It is not even good enough to be bad. It is, on the other hand, so bad that it becomes offensive in its final act, which only serves to contrast with the sheer boredom of the previous two. In the presence of serious social-situation films such as Mozart And The Whale or The Squid And The Whale, there is no reason whatsoever to see it.
About the only film's redeeming virtue is a moderated, gentle performance by Matt Dillon. The rest of the cast scream and babble their way through roles that give them less than a whole dimension to work with. The Springtime For Hitler play depicted in The Producers is less farcical. Equally problematic are the adults in this situation. While it is to be expected that a lot of the adult figures in town are going to think the problem will just float away if they rule over the youth with an iron fist, most people over the age of twenty have developed enough of a sense of realism. About the only line in the film that makes any sense is when Lane Smith tells one of the overlords that they have effectively turned their children into the very thing they moved out of civilisation to get away from. And that is what makes this whole thing ironic. These teens are revolting not because their fathers will not buy them a car when they turn sixteen or some petty thing like that. They are revolting because they are being denied their most basic rights, including equal protection under the law. Which makes it all the more insulting, how cheapening the film is.
Not that the youths are any better as characters than are the adults. Matt Dillon does a great job as a focal point for any empathy, but the rest of the young cast are as disagreeable as the adult cast. With the apparent lack of any organised solidarity in these youths, it beggars belief that they are able to organise well enough to hold the adults hostage in the school late in the story. Making matters even worse is that Charles Haas and Jonathan Kaplan are unable to resist the urge to turn this into an action film, with shotgun blasts causing multiple cars to explode in flames. Granted, insulting film physics were not as common in 1979 as they are now, but even asking us to believe that a seventeen year old (at most) can get his hands on a shotgun just pushes us over the edge. Pardon the pun. Even more insulting is how the situation is depicted with the police able to violate the teens' rights against illegal search and seizure or home invasion as if this happens to every white-bread teenager. One must think the police in this town moved from an area like California and became frustrated at the lack of any apparently autistic teens to violate.
Haas also crossed the line when he tried earlier to exaggerate a real-life incident into a news story, upon which he based the screenplay. I am not sure how easy it would be to find any of the teens who were involved in the real incident, but I suspect they would have the same thing to say about Haas' writings as L. Ron Hubbard's son had to say about ninety-five percent of what Hubbard wrote regarding his life. Namely, that it was utterly false. And therein lies the rub. Even upon initial release, I cannot believe that anyone who saw this film took it seriously. In the absence of any reason to take it seriously, this film only serves to polarise the subject and take the place of any serious discussion. I happen to feel that in years to come especially, those who live in communities like the one in this film are going to be hit the worst when the economics of transport become increasingly unviable.
I gave Over The Edge a two out of ten. It is not even good enough to be bad. It is, on the other hand, so bad that it becomes offensive in its final act, which only serves to contrast with the sheer boredom of the previous two. In the presence of serious social-situation films such as Mozart And The Whale or The Squid And The Whale, there is no reason whatsoever to see it.