1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Edge City - Dancing on the Edge of a Razor, June 7, 2007
This review is from: Edge City (DVD)
Eugene Martin did a fine job of recreating an event that occurred in the Philadelphia area a few years ago. This was a reality show before reality shows came on the scene. The complexity the characters and their relationships with families, each other and between suburban and urban areas was powerful.
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3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great film, May 2, 2003
I have not seen the DVD for this film, yet . . . but the film itself is wonderful. For some reason it's always getting compared to Kids and Bully, but don't be fooled -- this is not just a shock fest. Certainly worth the purchase. The writing is particularly amazing.
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1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Foul-Mouthed Waste of Time, March 17, 2006
This review is from: Edge City (DVD)
By the time we made it to the end of this DVD, we could care less if these unbelievably foul-mouthed teens were all killed in the so-called rumble.
I should say that I went to high school in suburban Detroit, and, let me tell you, real gang rumbles weren't anything like the so-called rumble in this movie. Two teens in our area were killed in real rumbles while I was in high school. I remember one particular time when my whole school of 3,000+ students was on edge (even the teachers were) about a major rumble planned for that weekend. Nobody could concentrate on school. Another time, a friend of mine had a party when his parents were gone and a gang from the City crashed it and did so much damage that it made national news. By the standards I remember about real-life gangs and real teen rumbles, this movie is a joke.
To me, this movie looks like it was done with handheld cameras by some student group, probably college but it could even be high school level. It is obvious that the scriptwriters had little interest in developing any characters so one could learn to care about them in the least. Instead of developing interesting personalities, all they must have been able to think of was incessant reprehensible gutter language. The handheld camera often swirls around so fast it leaves you dizzy. If that isn't enough, the editing is so choppy in places that those random cuts leave you dizzy. Some of the close-ups are so grainy it looks like they must have used an 8mm camera.
If you want a movie about inner city gangsters, I'd say get "187" instead. It is far more professionally done and a far more powerful story. The only reason I could see for buying this DVD is if one collects every teen gang movie made and wanted to add it to their collection. Oh, if you just love to hear endless foul-mouthed teens in movie, maybe you'll like this DVD. For most people, however, especially normal people, this movie is a "PASS IT UP." The ONLY reason I gave it one star is because there is no 'Amazon.com ZERO stars.
[The only reason I watched it was as part of research for an upcoming book on DVD movies about kids and for kids.]
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