Edge of Honor is First Blood with Boy Scouts decked in military surplus – equal parts coming-of-age adventure and violent survival thriller.
Starring Meredith Salenger, Don Swayze and Corey Feldman, who was starting to ride the fumes of his ’80s fame, the movie revolves around teens who stumble upon a stash of illegal weapons in the woods. Unfortunately for them, the weapons belong to a gang of backwoods mercenary types who don’t take kindly to witnesses. What follows is a revenge-laden Lord of the Flies, where these kids have to outthink and outgun grown men who would rather shoot than talk.
Salenger is absolutely the breakout ass-kicker.
It’s hard not to compare this one to Toy Soldiers (1991), another “teens vs. terrorists” thriller from the same year, but where Toy Soldiers had boarding school kids pulling stunts to outmaneuver hijackers, Edge of Honor leans more into the rustic survival angle. If Toy Soldiers is Die Hard at a prep school, Edge of Honor is Red Dawn on a budget, giving Feldman his Rambo moment. Both movies tap into that early-’90s trend of arming up teenagers and throwing them into violent, adult situations with creative DIY guerrilla tactics.
It’s got that fragrant straight-to-video odeur, it’s a movie you’d stumble upon at the video store sandwiched between better-known titles before hitting the ex-rental cheapie bin, but something about it just worked for me.
Maybe it’s the novelty of teens going full Platoon, or maybe it’s just the charm of its low-budget, high-stakes survivalist trappings. I used to be a Boy Scout, can you tell? It might not have the firepower of Toy Soldiers but it earns its place as a weird, scrappy little piece of early-’90s action cinema. -Pop