Those of you who name The Breakfast Club or something similar as your favorite teen movie should see Over the Edge, as it is a more realistic depiction of teenage alienation. These kids are not all right in New Granada—they are getting high, having sex, and committing juvenile crimes out of boredom in a planned community that has nothing to offer its youth. Their parents are apathetic and ignorant to their needs, caring more about chasing the American Dream than raising productive children. Fourteen-year-old Matt Dillon debuts as the worst of the bunch, a longhaired troublemaker doomed to fall at the hands of the local police sergeant. His unnecessary death compels New Granada’s adolescents to raise havoc in a fiery conclusion satisfying every rebellious kid’s revenge fantasies. Dazed & Confused wishes it was this cool. Real-life events inspired this story; particularly a San Francisco Examiner article published in 1973 about the unusually high juvenile crime rate in the planned suburb of Foster City, CA. Although Over the Edge is good visceral fun, it also makes necessary statements about suburban communities disregarding its troubled youth. Prophetic too—ironically, much of the filming took place in a Colorado suburb just 15 miles away from where the Columbine High School massacre took place twenty years later.
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