Dangerously Close

In a wave of teen vigilante films that captured the right-wing jingoism of the 1980s, "Dangerously Close" brings the drama to an elite school in California where social undesirables are targeted by a ruthless clique known as The Sentinels. As one of their targets is brutally murdered, an editor of the high school paper begins to investigate, leading to a violent showdown between the two groups. The film's tense and engrossing first two-thirds give way to a distressingly conventional conclusion that dissolves its unique qualities.