River's Edge (1987)

Truly Dreadful Film

A Brilliant Conflict

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Back* in the day when I first saw it, I was quite impressed with it. Truly a darkly controversial movie dealing with deeply disturbing subject. As RavenGlamDVDCollector, I've been putting off adding it to my collection for a long time, back in my VHS days, I'd had some misgivings about something with such negative imagery, and here we have a stark-naked glazed- eyes corpse... but recently realized I've got zilch, nada, zip of Ione Skye, so finally got around to obtaining this DVD.*I'm South African, this movie wasn't released here until much, much later. Our censors back then would have taken just one look at the naked white corpse and prayed for damnation of all that is Hollywood. After viewing, I found my opinion of this movie had changed considerably.I guess it is held in very high regard by the average reviewer here. So, hate me for this:I think it is a wasted opportunity to have delivered something better. Why?1) Crispin Glover is nothing but theatrically camp. His strung-out on drugs character comes across as simply a kinda effeminate loopy guy who'd have gotten his ass kicked in real life instead of having any friends. Over-acting, over-the-top, lays it on super-thick and then puts an extra layer on top of all that for extra overkill. I'm sorry, but you're just a comic, dude. (the two little boys were far more convincing, though the lead one was over-acting as well)2) Dennis Hopper can do better than that. Come on! At times he seemed to be laughing at his own silly antics. He was more goofy than creepy.I expected beforehand that I was really gonna enjoy this. And the way it starts, Daniel Roebuck was perfect, and I was settling in for A WINNER, but no...Who would have taken a guy like Layne seriously? Light-weight mascara'd halfway lady boy Layne?Daniel Roebuck also throws it away with an uneven performance, like, every time the dude speaks. Moodily just sitting there smoking at the beginning, he was perfect as some thuggish anti- social creep, until speaking up...Unexplained: The corpse was naked. The flashback murder seems to have been non-sexual, like a game gone wrong, and she was clothed. What gives? Goofs: Rigor mortis. One moment, the corpse has a hand that is still slack. Next moment, as it is rolled into the water, really really sickeningly stiff (like a dummy). People, take reality into account. I have a good mind to post it as a Goof, but I'd have to do some research on rigor mortis first besides what my common horse-sense tells me, and, er, no thanks...Plus point de lux for the movie : Two beautiful actors, the hottest couple back then. Keanu Reeves and Ione Skye. She is just beautiful.But miscast. Her character is kinda dumb. Some things dawn a bit slowly on that chick. While Ione Skye is so clearly bright and outright compassionate (you can tell that simply by looking at her) (those eyes!). One of the best scenes (which was just kicking up the movie a notch) was her reaction to the corpse of her friend - she retreats, abject horror, but it was cut short. Oh, waste!And, of course, had Ione not been in this, I'd not have been associated with this movie. At all. I'm very, very sensitive to dead-eyed white corpses as well.They almost had something much, much better here.Do not understand me wrong: Basically, it remains a good product. Like many others here would attest. But with more mistakes than there should have been. Some of them very serious flaws. I'm saying what Crispin gave, well was a notable performance, but entirely not the really needed one. As an outsider character, sure, that performance, yes, but he wouldn't have had such followers. Somebody else should have been the driving force, the leader.Then it would have been riveting, edgy... (get it???)

The premise is promising, but things go wrong pretty much straight away with a lot of dubious and bad acting and even more dubious and bad dialogues. I mean, who really thought for a minute you could get away with a character like Layne is played by Crispin Glover? Maybe if you had a comedy in mind... But even the performance of Dennis Hopper is none too convincing.What I díd like was the setting of the '80s smalltown (inlcuding all kinds of smaller or bigger accessories), the metal music of Slayer, Hallows Eve and Fates Warning and the theme of 'modern day' indifference vs. giving a sh*t, but that will never be good enough when you come across such flaws before-mentioned.5 out of 10.

An odd film about teenagers and how they deal with murder. The short answer to how they deal with it: they don't. Daniel Roebuck strangles his girlfriend to death after an argument, and when his stoner friends find out, they go examine the body. Unwilling to turn their friend in, they form a silent pact to keep it a secret. Some feel uneasy about that, but they're pretty emotionally disaffected. Crispin Glover plays Roebuck's biggest defender, Keanu Reeves the teen who eventually cracks under pressure and Ione Skye Reeves' girlfriend. Dennis Hopper plays the gang's nutjob drug dealer who has a special relationship with a blow-up doll. Joshua Miller, who would turn in an extremely memorable performance as a child vampire in the following year's Near Dark, plays Reeves' younger brother, a 12 year-old who idolizes the older teens. Miller probably gives my favorite performance in the film. Hopper is also fine, though this is pretty much the same kind of role he had in Blue Velvet, which was made around the same time. All the other actors, though, are pretty lousy. Glover can be fun at times, but you can't let him anywhere near anything even semi-serious - he's too goofy to handle it. And Reeves, while playing the type of character he would eventually excel at in the Bill & Ted movies, is very weak. Still, with all of the film's flaws, it's so unusual that it's never less than interesting.

Remember of "Stand by Me" and the whole thing of the four kids journey trying to find a dead body and on the way evaluating their lives up to that point? Now, picture this scenario: what if one of the kids was involved in a murder and keep bragging to everybody about his act showing a corpse as a way to prove that he killed someone? "River's Edge" pretty much covers such topic except that instead of kids we have a bunch of teenagers (and some kids too) getting involved in a complicated situation. One of them killed a girl and for whatever reasons he decided to share this with his friends who don't know how to respond to such problem. A part of the group who saw the body wants to protect their killer friend (Daniel Roebuck) like his buddy Layne (Crispin Glover), while others more doubtful of the whole thing like Matt (Keanu Reeves) and Clarissa (Ione Skye) want to do the right thing and let this being handled by the cops. It's only the beginning of a snowball effect that will become an avalanche sooner or later when other people get stuck with them in this case such a dangerous lunatic (Dennis Hooper), Matt's younger brother and plenty of others. Dramatic and thrilling enough to make you care about it "River's Edge" is a good film while dealing about the teen angst and how they try to cope with adulthood and its problems (here, throughout this crime they'll learn the value of friendship and also some moralistic lessons). The greatest thing covered here was the lack of communication between the teens in certain moments, when they couldn't express what they were feeling about everything happening to them, that was incredibly real, this anxiety of wanting to say and show something but not being able to do it. Other good point that must be raised is their immaturity, also very credible. They're dumb characters but not dumb enough to let you hating them like some flicks tend to do; you'll understand their idiotic moves and actions as being completely natural to them who are more interested in getting stoned and causing trouble then realizing the consequences for their acts. Sadly, this could be an great movie if wasn't for the creative flights of imagination from its writer and director who put unnecessary and unrealistic things in a story that sounds so real, so credible. Examples: the kids reaction when they see the body for the first time. I mean, do people wouldn't freak out a bit in seeing a friend that was killed by another friend?; the teacher's lousy reaction asking his students how they felt about the girl's murder, that was over-the-top and fake; the whole segment involving Keanu's little brother wanting to get revenge on him because he was beaten by him was very unbelievable, however it's interestingly presented, it's a good thing.What could make this movie better than it is would be erase Matt and Clarissa's date night when the whole disaster wasn't solved, that was distractive (and Keanu's face while getting laid. What was that?). Instead of these expendable tender moments the film should be longer and present more about the character's past, develop them in order so we could know how they were as friends, this sense of company, if they were so close to each other or if their friendship was always moved by some interest. The acting in this film is quite difficult to be analyzed, the result will vary depending of the viewer. I enjoyed the at times over-the-top performance of Crispin Glover, other people say he ruined the film. He's very good in playing this twisted junkie who wants to help his friend, trying to be the lead of the gang. Keanu is quite bad in this, emotionless. Having his role being played by Johnny Depp, even at that time when he wasn't all that famous, and we would have a different and good performance. The rest of the cast goes in between's, some good, some bad.It's well made and it makes some outstanding and relevant social commentaries on youth, family, and what growing up really means. Check it out some time. 8/10