Violences sur la ville (1979)
"Over the Edge" (original title)

New Grenada is a planned community set in the desert where there is nothing for the kids to do, save for a rec center - which closes at 6 PM. The parents, in their zeal to attract industry ... See full summary »

Director:

Jonathan Kaplan

Writers:

Charles S. Haas, Tim Hunter

Stars:

Matt Dillon, Michael Eric Kramer, Pamela Ludwig

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Michael Eric Kramer	...	Carl (as Michael Kramer)
Pamela Ludwig	...	Cory
Matt Dillon	...	Richie
Vincent Spano	...	Mark
Tom Fergus	...	Claude
Harry Northup	...	Doberman
Andy Romano	...	Fred Willat
Ellen Geer	...	Sandra Willat
Richard Jamison	...	Cole
Julia Pomeroy	...	Julia
Tiger Thompson	...	Johnny
Eric Lalich	...	Tip
Kim Kliner	...	Abby
Frank Mugavero	...	Party Host
Kristina Hanson	...	Lisa

Storyline

New Grenada is a planned community set in the desert where there is nothing for the kids to do, save for a rec center - which closes at 6 PM. The parents, in their zeal to attract industry to their town, have all but neglected their children. As a result, the kids begin to create their own entertainment, which involves vandalism, theft, and general hooliganism. During an incident when one of the kids brandishes an unloaded gun at town cop Ed Doberman, he is shot and killed. When the parents gather the next night to discuss the killing and the level of lawlessness among the youth, they soon find out that their kids have had all they can take.

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Plot Keywords:

vandalism | suburb | bare chested male | kiss | fire | 

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Taglines:

...A real story of teenage rebellion.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

-16

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

27 February 1980 (France)

Also Known As:

Violences sur la ville

Filming Locations:

Aurora, Colorado, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Orion Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Director Jonathan Kaplan wanted to use "Baba O'Riley" by The Who as the ending credits song, but ultimately couldn't do so because the licensing rights to the song were too expensive.

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Goofs

After the library is trashed, a boy is shown standing on top of a police car. At first he's swinging a pair of nunchaks, but in the very next scene he's holding a crowbar.

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Quotes

Sloan: Seems to me like you all were in such a hopped-up hurry to get out of the city that you turned your kids into exactly what you were trying to get away from.

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Connections

References L'inspecteur Harry (1971)

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Soundtracks

Best Friend's Girl
Written by Ric Ocasek
Performed by The Cars
Courtesy of Elektra / Asylum Records

User Reviews

The More You Suppress, the More Extreme the Revolt

Further than the imagery of white, middle-class American kids and teenagers getting high, speaking in an acquired voice and lingo to convey a both tastefully silly and unsettling angst, there's a visualization of America in Jonathan Kaplan's appealing, outlandish generation gap exploitation film that's anything but silly, and by now has basically become the norm. The details of the plot aren't all that essential. We're expected to grasp a sentiment of adolescent frustration and suspicion.

The locale is New Granada, one of those depressingly vanilla suburban districts that emerged all over this country in an upsurge of real-estate guesswork and substandard urban planning in the '60s and early '70s. New Granada is a development of dull condos, rigorously serviceable apartment blocks for those who cannot meet the expense of the condos, streets that bend futilely into badlands still to be urbanized, and an ultra-modern high school that seems like it's been built yesterday to accommodate tomorrow's automatons. It's the assertion of the filmmakers that the planners of New Granada made a grave gaffe in not bearing in mind that a quarter of its population would be 15 years old or younger, with nowhere to go except an old Quonset hut used as a rec center, nothing to consider and, most terrible, nothing to do.

The hub of the film is Carl, an ultimately good 15-year-old boy whose dad, a Cadillac dealer, frets more about selling than about where the kids are, before or after 10pm. Provoked by the case of his more experienced pal Richie, played by Matt Dillon, who auditioned for the role while skipping school, Carl starts to embrace the scornful, tough-guy characteristics of the rest of New Granada's youth, most of whom are on drugs of one kind or another. Carl keeps away from drugs but not danger. New Granada's fanatical policeman, Doberman, discriminatorily blames Carl and Richie for a practical joke perpetrated by two other troublemakers. Like a New Granada street, Carl's life doesn't seem to be progressing.

Doberman's jumpy shooting of one of Carl's friends induces the film's furious climax: The New Granada youth charge the high school, where their parents are holding an urgent assembly to argue property values and teenage crime, lock their parents into the school auditorium, and go on a huge sabotage binge. There's something unluckily amusing in the image of a smug child, who looks to be no more than 12, talking about scoring some hash for his friends, and about the quandary of another, just as young student who stumbles into an art class, having taken some LSD to begin the day, just to be faced with a projection of a Bosch painting.

The movie can't help idealizing its generally stupid teenagers, their incoherent yearnings and doubts, their disheartenment and, ultimately, their fuming revolt. Not including Carl and Richie, the youngsters aren't characters but a refrain of postures. Unlike other such films, however, this independent suburban wasteland drama dramatizes the tedium and futility of their world with exceptional sincerity. New Granada is a virtually unspoiled visual symbol of the incorporated obsolescence that's expected to perpetuate the American economy, but which makes crap faster than the crap can be used. If New Granada's kids are apathetic robots, they're only a spot more offensive and less self-righteous than their ignorant parents.

I suppose, the performances by the grown-ups in the film, particularly by Andy Romano and Ellen Geer, as Carl's parents, and by Harry Northup, as the harrying Doberman, are more effective than those of the younger actors, but both Kramer and Dillon are equal as Carl and Richie. Pamela Ludwig, who plays Carl's girlfriend, is super-hot. A great deal of Over the Edge is gawkily acted and motivated, but it's executed with such vibrancy and disquiet that, as you watch it, you're often caught halfway between an embarrassed laugh and a struggle for breath.