Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33949 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-10-04
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Synopsis
Based on a real life incident, this disturbing drama serves as a seminal study of disillusioned and alienated youth. Set in a small rural town, the local clique of slacker teens is pulled apart when Samson (Daniel Roebuck) kills his girlfriend on the banks of the river and then callously shows off the dead body to his friends. The teens are so numb and ambivalent to the reality of their situation that they remain relatively unphased by the murder of one of their own. Crispin Glover is brilliant as the drugged out paranoid, Layne, who sympathizes with the killer, and plots to hide him at the house of an eccentric recluse (Dennis Hopper), who is rumored to have comitted a similar crime in the 1960s. Keanu Reeves and Ione Skye co-star as Matt and Clarissa, two friends who are drawn together in their realization that something is horribly wrong. In this startling portrait of a morally void society, director Tim Hunter creates a remarkable world of dysfunction and dead-end lives that is haunting in its accuracy.

Customer Reviews

Welcome reissue of 80s cult-classic
River's Edge is a more than welcome reissue, and a definite obligatory purchase at this charming price- despite coming on an extra-less DVD (just language/subtitle features). This was always on my "To view" list after witnessing a guy lose it in a local video shop as a youth, demanding a refund on the immoral movie he'd just watched. I knew that a film that provoked such loathing was right up my cultural alley!

River's Edge is extremely overlooked- apart from Uncut-magazine (who have championed it over the years and published the odd article on it)- it has sunk from the radar. River's Edge is very much part of the culture created by the true Nevermind (as in Replacements) that Kurt Cobain got the credit for. Its depiction of alienated, nihilistic youth fits alongside such books as Garden State (Rick Moody), The Rules of Attraction (Bret Easton Ellis), & Secret History (Donna Tartt). River's Edge seems to me the fore of great teen-films that came in the wake of punk (US style)- Out of the Blue, The Decline of Western Civilization, Suburbia, Permanent Record, Heathers, Blue Velvet, Rumblefish, Twin Peaks, Drugstore Cowboy- as a film it perfectly captures the generation under Reagan.

It's also sadly based on an actual murder which occurred in 1981- which makes it a precursor of Larry Clark's excellent Bully (2001) which revolved around nihilistic teens and murder. River's Edge's soundtrack- which is in need of reissue- is another highlight, fusing the metal of Slayer with the underground-punk of The Wipers. It's hard not to think of the music coming out of America at the time- Meat Puppets, Screaming Trees, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Big Black, Scratch Acid, Husker Du, Replacements, Minutemen, Dead Kennedys etc. River's Edge seems to be the cinematic equivalent of the unsatisfied who said nevermind. William Faulkner if he'd dug The Dead Boys...

The film itself?- surprisingly minimal in terms of story: a boyfriend murders his girlfriend, shows his friends, who mostly do nothing, another murder occurs...and that's it! The body on the River's Edge seems to predict Laura Palmer, and director Tim Hunter would go on to direct several episodes of the Mark Frost-David Lynch cult-TV-series (Frederick Elmes, who has worked with Lynch several times is the cinematographer). The performances are natural and uniformly excellent- within the cast is Ione Skye (Gas Food Lodging, Say Anything), Keanu Reeves (the moral centre here!) & a key performance by Crispin Glover (Back to the Future, Willard), whose skewed take on things and perfectly stoned demneaour are ideal to the tale here (the soundtrack is mostly set to Glover's Layne driving round in his VW wasted!). River's Edge also contains another key performance from Dennis Hopper- this one feels somewhere between his turns in Blue Velvet (also 1986) and Jesus'Son (2000)- Hopper's drug-dealer Feck tends to hang around with his rubber-doll partner Ellie (a scene in a 7-11 where he dances around in the background as murderer Samson threatens a clerk with a gun over the sale of a beer is both disturbing & hilarious!).

River's Edge is one of the key films of the 1980s- one that warrants a wider-viewership than the curious Keanu-fan or cultish-Crispin-admirer. Life is a movie it seems, and the frequent statements that life feels like a movie throughout River's Edge highlights why this film is so significant (Natural Born Killers pre-empted by a decade then!). One scene in particular summarises this film and the generation it represents, Layne (Glover) is driving to his usual metal, stoned, and following his skewed take on the morality of the murder of peer Jamie, he states "I feel like I'm in a Chuck Norris movie- ya know????"

A cult-classic and my favourite film of the 1980s...

a genre-defying slice of contemporary cinematic brilliance!
This review of the wonderful River's Edge was written whilst reclining late into the evening, a large mongrel dog licking my stinky "plates", an industrial sized bag of tortilla chips maintaining my carbohydrate levels, and a litter of empty cans of a certain 9% lager (probably the best ... etc ...) - thus i offer multiple mitigations for deviating from the point on occasion ... First a confirmation that this is a comtemporary classic that may be viewed on multiple occasions (in varying degrees of sobriety) without loss of interest. This is due to River's Edge possessing in spades (make that coal shovels) that elusive and amorphous quality known as the x-factor; furthermore, like all great art the whole is greater than the sum of the parts - and the parts are pretty special anyway. The plot is simple but pregnant with moral undertones - teenager kills girlfriend, leaves body on the river's edge; chums decide to cover up for their mate. Gradually cracks appear in the friends' alliance as personalities clash and the enormity of the deed and their reaction to it take their toll ... Three characters / actors are worthy of mention [1] Keanu Reeves in his only convincing screen role (with the exception of the Bill & Ted movies); [2] Crispin Glover showing what a fine player of weirdos he is (he is said to actually be a touch "odd" in the real world); [3] Dennis Hopper as the biker Feck in another Hopper tour de force - he also has the best line of the movie regarding glazed donuts - listen close about an hour in ... Being based on true events only enhances the brooding quality of this movie. Watch it soon (lager and tortilla not obligatory).

A classic from the '80's!
I will dispense with the story and simply say that this is one of the greatest movies from '80's. A must buy for anyone interested in '80's cinema.