#65 - River's Edge

I believe that if all independent films were like this one, then Sundance would have never taken off and independent films wouldn't have been as mainstream as they are now. And I am thankful for that because for all of the artistic value that this movie has...and there is some...I couldn't bear to sit through very many poorly executed movies like this. The concept is very interesting. High school friends are forced to deal with the fallout after one friend kills another. That's great. That's interesting. But there are all of these other odd things that are absolutely befuddling to me. Most importantly, there wasn't a very good explanation as to why the guy killed the girl in the first place. She was saying things about my mother, or something like that. WHAT THINGS!?!?! Why didn't anybody ask these questions? I would think that they might be important questions to ask when you decide to help your murderous friend or not.

This was the kind of thing that plagued the whole movie. Too many times, the reactions of the characters were unexplained, unnatural, and/or unmotivated. This led to a number of scenes that drove me crazy because I couldn't believe that real human beings would react that way. For example, three of the friends were discussing the situation and what they should do about it, while hanging out at the arcade playing video games. I've never had a friend kill another friend, but I damn sure don't think that people would act so nonchalant about everything. SOMEONE GOT MURDERED AND YOU ARE JUST STANDING AROUND DOING NOTHING!!!!! Oh, I know what I should do in the wake of my best friends murder...have sex with Keanu Reeves in the park cause I have a crush on him. Were you two people in the right movie at that time?

I have to admit that even though the writing and directing were questionable, I was still interested in what was going to happen. Partially because of morbid curiosity, and partially because I had to know if there was a point to the decisions that were made for this movie. For example, Keanu Reeves' character had a little side story of a bad family life based around his stupid little brother. I was interested in seeing what happened when the girl faced, mullet haired, sweat pants wearing, stupid ear ringed little shit got a gun and wanted to shoot his brother. I can hear you asking why that would be happening, and I wish I could give you a realistic answer, but alas, I am left with pure speculation because I have no real clue. Sure, he was angry because his brother beat him up for being a punk. Sure, he is a punk because he lives in a broken home. But these sterotypical situations are enough explanation as to why thsi kid is as bad as he is. He's a nasty little fucker and I don't know why. I can surmise why Dennis Hopper hangs out with a blow-up doll, but I really dont know about this kid.

And if we are going to talk about things in this movie with no explanation, we must talk about the performance of Crispin Glover. One question comes to mind. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???? Part stoner and part spazz, Crispin Glover spent most of the movie flinging out ridiculous gestures, and pronouncing his sentences and words with unnatural inflections. It was honestly an interesting juxtaposition. Here, you have a cast full of stiff, stoic characters that don't really do anything, and there, you have the one character who does something, yet it is one of the worst cases of overacting I have ever seen in a movie. Make that a drama. Make that a non-sappy drama. We have all seen bad overacting in comedies, action movies, and sappy ass dramas, but this sticks out in this movie. It is so odd to see this guy twitch his way through this thing. If he wasn't so bad, this movie may have been okay, but he carries the whole thing, and his performance is awful. I dont know how a director would have let this happen.