MOVIE REVIEW : ‘OUT’ NEVER LOSES CONTROL

“Out of Control” (citywide) is anything but.

From frame one director Allan Holzman, a talented Roger Corman discovery, takes charge of this swift-moving teen adventure and never lets up until its exciting finish. Throughout, he’s backed solidly by cinematographer John A. Alonzo, whose work here is just as dynamic as it is in his more prestigious assignments. “Out of Control” may be elementary, even primitive at times, but it’s intensely cinematic and far superior to most teen thrillers.

Sandra Weintraub Roland and Vicangelo Bulluck’s terse script has a group of Seattle high schoolers taking off after a prom in a rich kid’s private plane, which crashes into the sea during a storm. The veteran pilot dies, and the kids are left stranded on an island less deserted than it at first seems.

As one adventure leads to another these likable, believable young people grow up fast. There’s a fairly steamy (and also amusing) spin-the-bottle sequence and later on an actually quite tender and discreet love scene. And when the kids find themselves fighting for their very lives things get pretty brutal, but the film’s treatment of both sex and violence is comparatively restrained.

Leading players are Martin Hewitt as the rich kid, Betsy Russell as his girl, Jim Youngs (the most impressive) as the tough but sensible guy from the other side of the tracks, and Andrew J. Lederer as a hefty youth who defends himself with his wit.