In the age of Reagan, to "just say no" means to relinquish that minute, but powerful act of just saying yes. At least, this seems true for a generation of teenagers whose only expression of power comes from consuming taboo experience in a world of dead nerve-endings. River's Edge plunges into the dark heart of Middle America to witness such a consumption. To anchor his film in a realistic setting, director Tim Hunter uses the grotesque but true story of a 16-year-old Milpitas, California student who strangles his 14-year-old girlfriend. This was a tragic but not sensational deed, until one learns that the killer, Samson, divulges his miscreant act to his cohorts and no one "narks." Neal Jimenez's remarkably brittle, gamey script takes us inside this morbid brat pack. We go straight to the corpse, ethereal in its blue stillness, and witness the parade of teenage narcoleptics. Two of these insensate suburbanites begin a battle of allegiance: Layne, a strung-out, wire-triggered stoner, rants about friendship and loyalty, while Matt, a laid-back dopehead with a conscience, argues that the murder must be reported. River's Edge captures this immorality play against a disembodied, dreary landscape. Without the gravity of social values, the teenagers seem to levitate above the void. Playing a one-legged dope dealer whose only companion is a blow-up sex doll, Dennis Hopper, as Feck, brings a kind of '60s psycho ethic to the film. He had killed a woman because he had loved her, loved her too much to forgive her betrayal. Feck seethes with torment, the sort of ghostly, smoldering anxiety only Hopper can muster. Scruffy and dissolute, he stands beside Samson, an anesthetized hulk who murdered a girl because, for that single moment, he felt powerful. With vexed curiosity, Hopper asks, "But did you love her, man?" To this, Samson has no answer.