sjrobb99-997-836393
I've seen this movie several times, and every time I see it I'm amazed anew at how wonderfully, bizarrely nihilistic it is. It's a disturbing little piece of cinema -- how many movies actually make you want to punch out a 12-year-old character? -- but amazing nonetheless.Based on the true story of a teenager in Milpitas, CA, who killed his girlfriend and brought his friends to view her body, "River's Edge" records a few days activity among a group of disaffected kids, and how their lives are interrupted when one of their buddies murders his girlfriend and--essentially--dares them to turn him in. Woven into the narrative is an unblinking, flat-eyed look at the inner lives of people who really don't care what happens around them.Samson (Daniel Roebuck) strangles his girlfriend, Jamie, and leaves her naked body on the river bank. The opening of the film shows him drinking beer and howling at the sky in the early morning mist, apparently exhilarated by his accomplishment; he is viewed through the eyes of Tim (Joshua Miller), who has ridden his bike to the bridge to throw his younger sister's doll into the river. Tim is a piece of work. Because of his youth (he is 12) and his crappy home life (he lives with his constantly quarreling mother and stepfather) you want to feel sorry for him but the movie posits him as such a nasty little jerk that you find yourself wishing someone would throw HIM off the bridge.For the rest of the movie, Samson's friends will react by varying degrees to the murder as he shows them the body and explains -- in a way curiously devoid of inflection -- that he killed her because she was "talking sh*t" about his mother (thus setting up one of my favorite conversations in the whole movie, between a frenetic Layne (Crispin Glover) and his concerned girlfriend, Clarissa (Ione Skye) -- when Clarissa says "What, he kills Jamie and we just pretend it never happened?" Layne snaps back "He HAD his REASONS!").The reactions of the friends form the core of the movie -- why don't they care? Why, when they are shown their friend and classmate lying naked and rapidly purpling on the riverbank, do they not immediately run to the police? Why do they spend two days driving around town, scoring weed from the local crazy drug dealer, Feck (psychotically essayed by Dennis Hopper) and having sex in a local park while they discuss what they ought to do? Wouldn't any sane person's reaction be to call the authorities and turn Samson in? Well, wouldn't it? Along with Tim the evil 12-year-old, Crispin Glover's Layne seems to be the embodiment of the problem. Jittery in a way that will make anyone who has ever used amphetamines wish they didn't know exactly how he feels, skittering along a path laid by a seriously skewed moral compass, Layne is convinced that true friendship can only be expressed by helping Samson escape prosecution for the murder of their friend. Accordingly, he lectures the group about how they must all stick together and show the world that they are a team. You'd think he was exhorting soldiers for a last push into enemy territory, rather than attempting to force a bunch of stoned, confused, apathetic kids to protect a possibly-sociopathic acquaintance.Adult influence is represented by Dennis Hopper's Feck, who likes to remind people that he once killed a woman and "They are still after me!" Feck, a one-legged fugitive biker, lives in a ramshackle house full of motorcycle parts and marijuana. His only companion is a blow-up doll named Ellie; he dresses her and dances with her and treats her with gentle solicitude. Only Dennis Hopper could make you wonder if Feck even knows Ellie is a doll; at one point he tells Samson, "She's a doll. I know she's a doll."--but, being Dennis Hopper, he delivers this final proof of his sanity just before drawing a gun and shooting Samson in the head. Ultimately, the viewer decides it doesn't matter because Feck is fascinating either way.Keanu Reeves, as Tim's older brother Matt, is...Keanu Reeves. He's playing the same slightly confused, not-quite-bright teenage stoner that he always played before he landed "The Matrix", but you can believe he'd be the only one with enough conscience to turn Samson in to the local police -- just as you can believe he'd be righteously indignant when the interviewing detective suggests he might have something to do with the murder (another fabulous line: "What was your relationship to this girl, anyway? Did you love her, did you hate her, did you f**k her when you got bored? WHAT?") The murderous Samson is portrayed with dead-eyed perfection by Daniel Roebuck as a kid who seems to have decided very early on that since we're all going to die anyway, it doesn't really matter what we do while we're here. His soliloquy about how incredibly alive he felt after murdering Jamie is bone-chilling, as is his rapidly escalating antisocial behavior; he goes from quietly acceding to anything Layne asks (at the beginning of the film) to angrily pulling a gun on a convenience store clerk toward the end (while Feck, clutching Ellie in the aisle of the store, asks, sweetly, "Do you have Bud in bottles?") You get the distinct feeling that, left to his own devices, Samson would have a body count pretty fast.The message of the movie is that there is no message. It plays as a documentary, almost, and simply presents the event and the subsequent confusion of the kids as something that happened once. I think that's why the movie works so well. It doesn't have any message, it just has a story, and the story will stick with you forever.
knucklebreather
"River's Edge" is a very perplexing movie. The most striking feature of the movie seems to be the universally apathetic characters. In the opening sequence we learn that Samson, a very large, uncontrollable teenager has killed Jamie, a member of his group of stoner friends from school, and left her naked body by the river's edge.While there are many movies about heartless killers, Samson is fully realized, such as he is, and I was struck by the utter lack of any rime or reason to his actions, any "Hollywood" touches to humanize him or explain what he did. He killed a girl and really doesn't care. There was no planning, before or after, no moralizing, at most he is amused by it.Samson (also called John because of his last name) tells his friends, who display apathy that might be shocking. The only one who seems to care is Layne (Crispin Glover) who wants to cover it up so his friend doesn't get arrested and executed. But the rest don't really seem too shaken by it, they don't get mad at John, they even justify his actions, and they certainly don't go to the police right away.River's Edge works because there is no clear message. I'm sure many people can find one in it, but it's definitely not a movie that hits you over the head with some moral. It presents some very strangely behaving people, who are often over the top but depicted with just enough realism that you have to take what is going on seriously. The fun in this movie is that you get to float around in this shockingly apathetic teenage wasteland for an hour and a half, and see what you can make of it.The main problem I had with the movie was the direction and soundtrack, which coincide to create awkward transitions and moments where "River's Edge" feels like a crappy low-budget flick you'd find being mocked on MST3K. None of the dialogue or plot falls into that category, but it's the transitions between scenes, where they often just kind of end unimpressive and cut to the next one.The soundtrack also kept drawing me away from the movie. It includes some edgy metal for 1986, which is perfectly fine for the movie, but it doesn't do much with it, and instead most of the music is an orchestral soundtrack. Parts of it are very atmospheric and perfect for the movie's feel, but at other times it is hitting cliché film score notes during tense scenes and really seeming quite cheesy. I contrasted this movie with "Picnic at Hanging Rock", a spiritual cousin of "River's Edge" I would say, where the score was so utterly perfect at always building the mood, and really think River's Edge could have been an incredible movie with a score that consistent.River's Edge isn't perfect. I had honestly never even heard of it until I saw it mentioned as a superior film with the same basic themes as "Bully" by Larry Clark. I am very glad I rented it, and am a bit surprised I'd never heard of it. It deserves to be better known. It has some flaws and not everyone will like it, but there is a lot of depth here, and of course its cast includes several famous people in early or debut roles.
