All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

3/31/18. While this film didn't get a lot of press when it first came out (1979) because there were similar type movies at the time, it eventually got rediscovered and is now considered a cult classic. As a cult classic you really can appreciate the social commentary this movie provides about how planned communities failed to meet the needs of their residents, namely, the tween population. And, tweens need guidance more than anything else. Eventually, an all out rebellion explodes when one of their own is shot by a cop. Today you can watch this as a cautionary tale about how tweens and teens do need parental guidance and cannot be left to their own devices (now with an added meaning in our technological addicted society). Worth watching as it has stood the test of time and still remains relevant because it still says something about what it means to be in middle school and trying to grow up without being ostracized by one's peers. By the way, the soundtrack was totally fantastic!

Matt Dillon made his acting debut in Over the Edge playing a punk kid, a character he would parlay into a few more coming-of-age movies in subsequent years. He managed to have a pretty fair career despite the typecasting. Here, his nascent bad-boy personality and charm kick the movie up a notch or two, making a household name for himself in the process.New Grenada is a fictional town in the middle of the desert, a planned community. There's nothing for kids to do, save for hanging out at the local recreation center - which inconveniently closes at 6 pm. It's only a matter of time before the garden-variety vandalism worsens, and sure enough, when two kids fire a BB gun at a police-officer's car from an overpass, tensions in the town become proportionally thicker.At the center of the movie is young Carl (Michael Eric Kramer), son of the homeowners' association president, who's trying to get Texas millionaires to buy some prime real estate in town (rather than build a bowling alley). Carl is described as a nice, smart kid who happens to run with a rebellious crowd, particularly the perpetually on-probation Richie (Dillon), who wears his damn-the-man attitude like a pair of tighty whities.The scourge of the kids' existence is authority in the name of one Officer Doberman (Harry Northup), who is not above harassing the kids any chance he gets. And, for much of the movie, he gets plenty of chances. And when the rec center is inevitably shut down (the better to prevent the rich investors from noticing the Kid Problem), all hell really breaks loose in a realistic, tragic denouement.The script (by Charles Haas and Tim Hunter) effectively illustrates the angst of late-seventies teens desperate to do something, anything, to entertain themselves, something that'll gain themselves notice if not notoriety. The movie is loosely based on an incident that occurred in a real-life planned community in California in the early 1970s and certainly still rings true today.

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.

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.