one of the good movie to come out of the 1980 and this base on fact movie tell the story of a disturbed high school student who murder his girlfriend and leave her naked body on a river bank and and brag about it later to his friend . what be just a bad be their inability to feel anything about it . disturb but incredibly compelling look at aimless and apathetic kid who have no respect for their parent or any sort of authority and who seem almost doom to live life of rebellion and recklessness . this drama hit hard and be impossible to forget . the young cast do a creditable job even keanu reef and in one of his early role and be well than usual . of course and there no reason for the character of layne ( crispin glover ) to be a crazed and off the wall a he be and but that just glover be himself . veteran dennis hopper have an especially good role a a loner who despite his own sordid past be sadden by the attitude of this group of kid . i would like to point out the chill performance by daniel roebuck a the young murderer while he an under rat actor and aside from hopper and his be probably the best performance in the film . i saw river edge for the first time a long time ago when it first start be show on cable tv movie channel while however and i do not catch all of it while i saw it in it entirety for the first time a number of year later and and now i have see it again for what be probably the definitive time . some potently affecting moment include madeleine ( constance forslund ) breakdown where she wail that maybe she should leave her child just like their worthless father do . i also like the scene where matt ( reef ) face off with his disturbed young brother ( joshua miller ) and when the teacher and mr. burkewaite ( jim metzler ) deplore the fact that the girl have die and that none of his student seem to care . i will never forget this film and not as long a i live . it too sadden for that . positive .