River's Edge Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

River's Edge Blu-ray Movie Review

"I give up this mother bullshit, it's not worth it. You're all a mistake anyway!"

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown December 26, 2024

Keanu Reeves, Crispin Glover, Ione Skye Leitch, Daniel Roebuck, Dennis Hopper and a slew of familiar faces. 1986's River's Edge certainly had its finger on the pulse of hot "it" casting in its day, but I'm not so sure it benefits. Though loosely based on a true tale of young crime and deviance, the film plays it all a bit too loose, seemingly allowing its stars -- Roebuck and Hopper especially -- to drift into territory that feels more fictionalized than it's meant to. Rather than a cutting tale of teen delinquency, it plays like a poor man's mashup of Stand By Me and Blue Velvet, which is odd since all three movies just so happened to release in 1986. Whereas Stand By Me gave us four believable leads struggling with the pains of growing up in the 1950s and Blue Velvet gave us one helluva Hopper performance, River's Edge languishes in amorality; it's message not entirely clear and it's characters muddier than the ground on which the film's tragic victim lies unattended.

Dennis Hopper's Feck: "I killed a girl, it was no accident. Put a gun to the back of her head and blew her brains right out the front. I was in love."

In a lonely town, bulky teen Samson (Daniel Roebuck) has murdered his girlfriend for unknown reasons, leaving her nude body exposed by the local river. Casually admitting his crime to his friends, including Matt (Keanu Reeves), Clarissa (Ione Skye), and Layne (Crispin Glover), Samson shows no remorse, rattling his peers with his cold behavior. Looking to Feck (Dennis Hopper), the local drug dealer and sex-doll-toting neighbor, for advice, Layne begins plans to get rid of the body and protect his pal, trusting everyone will follow his lead. When they resist, tensions rise, with Matt caught between his conscience and general apathy, eventually reporting the murder to police, which kicks off an investigation. Also in the mix is Tim (Joshua Miller), Matt's little brother and a damaged kid looking to disrupt with his own brand of mischief, targeting Feck's house to find a gun capable of threatening his dismissive sibling.

Click here to read the rest of Brian Orndorf's analysis of River's Edge, which he says "certainly isn't something that's watched casually, confronting viewers with a sharp display of developing insanity that demands a unique level of concentration, tasked to get past the picture's era-specific flavorings and isolate its primal scream intent." Adding, "tone is elastic... there's no concrete position of remorse or investigation to cling to, with Hunter embracing the switchback layout of the script."

River's Edge Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

"It is in bad taste. This whole episode is in bad taste. You young people are a disgrace to the human race. To all living things, to plants even. You shouldn't be seen in the same room with a cactus."

Kino Lorber first released Killer's Edge on Blu-ray in 2015. The new Sandpiper Pictures BD appears to offer the same 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer, though I noticed some compression artifacting my colleague didn't mention, which might suggest a slightly more problematic presentation than previously available. Softness is still prevalent throughout the picture, more a product of the original cinematography than anything more concerning, but a distraction of note. Detail follows suit, though there are quite a number of shots that feature nicely textured closeups and clean edge definition. At least edge halos aren't out in force, despite the presence of some minor sharpening here and there, and delineation is pretty good, allowing decent visibility in the shadows when the film gets literal with its darkness. Color and contrast is the highlight of the presentation, with a subdued but lifelike palette populated with lush greens and earthtones, spot-on saturation, some welcome pop to primaries, convincing skin tones, and satisfying black levels. Grain is also present throughout the film, but it has a chunky Campbell's soup appearance that suggests a remaster might go a long way to improving matters. Print specks only underline the need for another go-round. I'd drop the score to from Brian's 3.5 to a 3.25. Since I don't have quarter points, though, I went with a 3.0, which admittedly may be a touch harsh.  

River's Edge Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

"What would you do, kill me? You'd love that, I'll bet. You and John could run off and be outlaws together. But first, to show off to your friends, strap my dead body to the top of your car and drive all over town."

River's Edge returns with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track that does a fine job with the soundscape its given. Dialogue is intelligible, voices are clean and carefully prioritized, the film's score never overwhelms, and more impactful effects are given decent weight and presence, even without any LFE channel support. As Brian noted in his 2015 review of the Kino Lorber review, there is some air hiss in select scenes. It's era-specific and arguably enhances the docudrama "feel" of the film, but it would no doubt be eliminated in a modern remastering, so no mercy there.

River's Edge Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Sandpiper Pictures' Blu-ray release of River's Edge doesn't include the audio commentary featured on the 2015 Kino Lorber edition. It only includes the film's theatrical trailer.

River's Edge Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"This is like some f**kin' movie. Friends since second grade, f**kin' like this. And then one of us gets himself in potentially big trouble, and now we've gotta deal with it. We've got to test our loyalty against all odds. It's kind of... exciting. I feel like Chuck Norris, y'know?"

Kids Breaking Bad has been the subject of many a film, with River's Edge fitting snuggly between a slew of misguided melodramas and a handful of classics, losing its way in its grasp for greatness but never fumbling so much that it fails altogether. It's more interesting for its young cast and early Keanu Reeves performance than much else, although Dennis Hopper is on hand to flex his weirdo vibe and indulge in his delightful brand of overacting. Sandpiper's Blu-ray is something of a mixed bag too, with a merely decent video presentation, solid lossless audio, and a lack of extras; a shame considering an audio commentary from previous releases is floating in the void out there somewhere.