Edge City (1998)

Edge City: Directed by Eugene Martin. With Charlie Hofheimer, Heather Gottlieb, Isidra Vega, Ryan Carmody. Two suburban girls fall victims of a rude, but harmless, prank by some boys whose origins are not clear, but the girls think they are from Philadelphia. Rumours make “almost rape” from the prank, and revenge is needed, so tension between kids from urban Philadelphia and suburban Springville escalates.

“I caught this during a brief run in a Philadelphia theater. Despite its local provenance (and its relation to a hometown tragedy, namely the beating death of Eddie Polec in 1994), I really have to come down hard on this movie. The director, for reasons best known to himself, decided to shoot the entire film guerilla-style, with nonstop handheld cameras and rapidfire cuts. Such technique might work for the scenes of jarring violence, but is utterly inappropriate for the rest of the material, which makes up the majority of the film. A stroll down the sidewalk, a brother-to-brother discussion on a sofa, hell, even a kiss on a first-date are all shot cusinart-style, distracting this viewer from ever being able to enter into the drama. Martin also undercuts his narrative by packing in far too many topics: besides the birth of mob violence, we get anorexia, alcoholism, divorce, racism, parental abuse…did I miss anything? No doubt a better cast (and a better-focused direction) would have knit these threads together, as Martin surely intended, to demonstrate how one moral flaw leads into and sustains a host of others…but good intentions do not necessarily a great film make. Just a sprawling mess. Martin, I know youu0026#39;re from my town, and Iu0026#39;m down with you man, I really am…just do a better job next time, like you did in Two Plus One.”