2/12/2014
River's Edge Movie Review & Film Summary (1987) | Roger Ebert
In Memoriam 1942 – 2013 | ★ ★ ★ ★
RIVER'S EDGE
RIVER'S EDGE (1987)
Cast
Crispin
Glover
as
Layne , Dennis
Hopper
as
Feck , Keanu
Reeves
as
Matt , Ione
Skye
Leitch
as
Clarissa , Daniel
Roebuck
as
Sampson ,
Joshua
Miller
as
Tim , Roxanna
Zal
as
Maggie ,
Directed
by
Tim
Hunter,
Produced
by
Sarah
Pillsbury, Midge
Sanford,
Screenplay
by
Neal
Jimenez,
Photographed
by
Frederick
Elmes,
Edited
by
Howard
Smith, Sonya
Sones,
Music
by
Jurgen
Knieper,
Crime,
Drama
Rated
R
99
minutes
WATCH THIS MOVIE
Amazon
Instant
Video (Streaming)
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rivers-edge-1987
1/3
2/12/2014
River's Edge Movie Review & Film Summary (1987) | Roger Ebert
Amazon
Prime
(http://developers.gowatchit.com/widget/movies/river-sedge-6288/watch_now?
availability=2875292&partner_id=1&provider=11&provider_format=16)
Powered by GoWatchIt (http://gowatchit.com)
★ ★ ★ ☇ |
Roger
Ebert
May 29, 1987 | ☄ 0
I remember reading about the case at the time. A high school kid killed his girlfriend and left her body lying on
the ground. Over the next few days, he brought some of his friends out to look at her body, and gradually word of
the crime spread through his circle of friends. But for a long time, nobody called the cops.
A lot of op-ed articles were written to analyze this event, which was seen as symptomatic of a wider moral
breakdown in our society. "River's Edge," which is a horrifying fiction inspired by the case, offers no explanation
and no message; it regards the crime in much the same way the kid's friends stood around looking at the body.
The difference is that the film feels a horror that the teenagers apparently did not.
This is the best analytical film about a crime since "The Onion Field" and "In Cold Blood." Like those films, it
poses these questions: Why do we need to be told this story? How is it useful to see limited and brutish people
doing cruel and stupid things? I suppose there are two answers. One, because such things exist in the world and
some of us are curious about them as we are curious in general about human nature. Two, because an artist is
never merely a reporter and by seeing the tragedy through his eyes, he helps us to see it through ours.
"River's Edge" was directed by Tim Hunter, who made "Tex," about ordinary teenagers who found themselves
faced with the choice of dealing drugs. In "River's Edge," that choice has long since been made. These teenagers
are alcoholics and drug abusers, including one whose mother is afraid he is stealing her marijuana and a 12-yearold who blackmails the older kids for six-packs.
The central figure in the film is not the murderer, Sampson (Daniel Roebuck), a large, stolid youth who seems
perpetually puzzled about why he does anything. It is Layne (Crispin Glover), a strung-out, mercurial rebel who
always seems to be on speed and who takes it upon himself to help conceal the crime. When his girlfriend asks
him, like, well, gee, she was our friend and all, so shouldn't we feel bad, or something, his answer is that the
murderer "had his reasons." What were they? The victim was talking back.
Glover's performance is electric. He's like a young Eric Roberts, and he carries around a constant sense of danger.
Eventually, we realize the danger is born of paranoia; he is reflecting it at us with his fear.
These kids form a clique that exists outside the mainstream in their high school. They hang around outside,
smoking and sneering. In town, they have a friend named Feck (Dennis Hopper), a drug dealer who lives inside a
locked house and once killed a woman himself, so he has something in common with the kid, you see? It is
another of Hopper's possessed performances, done with sweat and the whites of his eyes.
"River's Edge" is not a film I will forget very soon. Its portrait of these adolescents is an exercise in despair. Not
even old enough to legally order a beer, they already are destroyed by alcohol and drugs, abandoned by parents
who also have lost hope. When the story of the dead girl first appeared in the papers, it seemed like a freak show,
an aberration. "River's Edge" sets it in an ordinary town and makes it seem like just what the op-ed philosophers
said: an emblem of breakdown. The girl's body eventually was discovered and buried. If you seek her monument,
look around you.
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rivers-edge-1987
2/3
2/12/2014
River's Edge Movie Review & Film Summary (1987) | Roger Ebert
POPULAR BLOG POSTS
Strength
and
compassion:
a
note
to
drug
abuse
concern
trolls,
concerning
Philip
Seymour
Hoffman
The
Unloved,
Part
3:
"The
Hudsucker
Proxy"
Scout
Matt
Zoller
Seitz
Scout Tafoya's "The Unloved," an appreciation of fascinating
movies that were critically reviled on first release, co...
Some notes on Philip Seymour Hoffman, addiction, and
compassion.
"Man
of
Steel",
Feet
of
Clay
Gerardo
Valero
Gerardo Valero reflects on "Man of Steel" and the challenges of
making a good Superman movie.
Tafoya
Stay,
little
Valentine:
Philip
Seymour
Hoffman,
19672014
Matt
Zoller
Seitz
Matt Zoller Seitz on why Philip Seymour Hoffmann mattered.
POPULAR REVIEWS
The
Lego
Movie
★★★★
Her
RoboCop
★
http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/rivers-edge-1987
★★★☇
Lone
Survivor
★★
3/3