Le fleuve de la mort

I just saw this movie for the second time. I first saw it back in the mid-90's as a Vanguard Video selection. It has retained it power.

It is interesting from several aspects. One is that it is based on a true story. Two is it is a launching pad for two interesting actors: Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover. And three, it has Dennis Hopper in one of his better social misfit/psychotic character roles.

The movie is also a study in the way people act in different settings. You have characters in one-on-one, family, peer group, school, general society settings, etc. The story does well in demonstrating how a person will act in each setting.

I wish I could find the details of the actual murder to compare to the movie. I saw a short bit that indicated it occurred in California and that several schoolmates were taken to view the corpse.

This is a good choice for a rainy night video rental. Be prepared to feel unsettled at the end.

Tim Hunter made a masterful film in River's Edge, one of the most serious and thoughtful dramatic studies of teenage life I have ever seen. So many elements of the film have a cult following (chief among them the performances of Crispin Glover as Layne and Dennis Hopper as Feck) that I will comment on my own personal favorite moment: the harrowing sex scene between Matt (Keanu Reeves) and Clarissa (Ione Skye). Entwined in sleeping bags with a six pack while police search for their good friend, the two try to find respite while the overwhelming events of the day coil into a vacuum of solitude and silence experienced by children who have sex without knowing each other or themselves. Some will argue that Hunter is heavy-handed with the close association of sex and death, but to see Matt writhe helplessly under Clarissa while elsewhere John (Daniel Roebuck) describes to Feck what it was like to strangle his girlfriend always sends chills up and down my spine.

Not to take away from anyone else, especially the writer Jimenez and the director Hunter, and the high school teacher and a lot of other people that make this movie really good, but I have to say I found Daniel Roebuck's performance completely riveting. He should have been nominated for it. He's big and brutal but also young and self-pitying and yet careless about his own fate. Those gestures, the tossing of beer cans and breaking into the ammo shop. Really well done.

That scene w/Hopper and the doll by the riverbank was one of the better moments of cinema I've seen in a long, long time. Why was this movie so under the radar compared to other 80's movies? That's what I want someone on this board to answer. The critics kind of mystify me, I guess. I agree with a lot of the postings here that this movie is underrated. Buy why?

Samson 'John' Tollet (Daniel Roebuck) is a strange guy. But nobody foresaw that he would kill his girlfriend Jamie. He left her naked body on the river's edge. When he tells everybody, nobody believed him. When people actually saw the body, everybody must deal with it in their own way.

The friends are all heavy metal listening slacker disaffected teens. Keanu Reeves plays the nice guy Matt. He's conflicted about Jamie's death. He knows something is morally wrong but he's unable to voice it at first. Keanu is able to inhabit this role perfectly. His uncomfortableness with Layne afterwards is amazing. Ione Skye plays Clarissa the sweet girl who just can't get up the courage to call the police. But it's Crispin Glover who steals the show playing Layne. He is the complete amoral weirdo. It's almost as if he enjoys the rush. It's more than a simple great movie. It's actually giving a slice of humanity and inhumanity without being preachy. It is unique.

River's edge is not a PLEASANT film to watch but it is an incredible one. Having viewed it many years ago I truly think it would still have the ability to shock were it to be re released or remade or something. Perhaps no movie ever made has captured the essense of young suburban inertia like this distrubing frightening movie. Given that this is based on a true story it is even more disturbing. Very well acted and just UNPLEASANT at many times to watch but also a little known masterpiece and a truely important film. Should be a mandatory to watch shown nationwide in all highschools. Fantastic.