Freeway (1996)

I love this movie so much

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I've yet to see Tiptoes, the film from which director Matthew Bright was fired (and, sadly, his last movie to date), but I've found everything else by the film-maker to be hugely entertaining thanks to a unique off-kilter style that appeals to my sense of the bizarre. Bright's distinctive approach is very much evident in his debut Freeway, an unforgettable spin on the tale of Little Red Riding Hood: the twisted plot is extremely exploitative and suitably lurid, the characters are grossly exaggerated, the direction is lively, and even though the fairytale is known to most, I'll wager you've never seen it told quite like this.Reese Witherspoon plays white trash juvenile delinquent Vanessa Lutz, who, after her streetwalker mother (a hilariously OTT turn by Amanda Plummer) and crack-head stepfather are arrested, escapes from her social worker to go looking for her grandmother up North. En route, Vanessa experiences car trouble, but is aided by good samaritan Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), who offers her a lift. What Vanessa doesn't realise is that Bob is the serial killer who has been slicing up hookers on the I-5 interstate, and he plans to do very bad things to her (AFTER he's killed her, of course!); unfortunately for Bob, Vanessa is more than capable of protecting herself.What follows is a darkly humorous tale full of surprises, memorable characters, extreme violence and great performances, not just from Witherspoon and Sutherland, but also from an excellent supporting cast that includes Dan Hedaya, Brooke Shields and Brittany Murphy. The film also benefits from a quirky score by Danny Elfman that suits the demented material perfectly. Any film that features the star of 24 with a messed up face and a poop bag, and the star of Legally Blonde hiding a makeshift knife up her holiest of holies is easily worth a 9/10 from me.

Freeway is one of those films that are okay but still manage to be a little disappointing because it's so damned apparent that it could have been much better. It's perfectly clear where the story is going early on, yet it still takes forever to get there. When it finally arrives, writer/director Matthew Bright throws a great left turn into the plot and sets up a potentially fascinating second half of the movie. That never materializes because Bright ignores almost all of the possibilities suggested by his great idea so he can relentlessly focus on a main character who is too impervious to care about.Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) is the 15 year old, illiterate spawn of poor white city trash. Her drug addict stepfather (Michael T. Weiss) molests her and her at-best-borderline crazy mother (Amanda Plummer) turns tricks on the street in the parking lot outside the motel room where they all live. When they get arrested, Vanessa tries to flee to the grandmother she's never met. Along the way, she runs into Bob Wolverton (Keifer Sutherland) a counselor for troubled youth who offers her a lift and some help with Vanessa's beyond screwed up life.If I tell you there's a mention at the start of the film of a serial killer targeting young girls in Vanessa's town, can you guess where her and Bob's relationship is headed? That is where it goes, though writer/director Bright waits a long time to get it there and then shamelessly foreshadows it right before it happens, as though anyone watching this movie didn't see it coming. But then he takes what you expect and completely upends it, leaving you without any clue where Freeway is going next but anxious to find out.That feeling doesn't last long because writer/director Bright takes almost all of the interesting directions his story could go and reduces them to comic relief so he can put Vanessa through her paces in an afterschool special that has no moral or "message to grow on", unless that moral is "bad things also happen to bad people". It's only when Freeway needs an ending that writer/director Bright abruptly picks up some of the potential he's cast aside and tries to cobble together a big finish. I'm not sure the origins of this motion picture, but what it turned out to be was a starring vehicle for the young Reese Witherspoon that went nowhere. Not because she isn't cute as all get out and doesn't do a fine job here. It's because Vanessa dominates the whole show and is a sociopath but unfortunately, she's not one of those intriguing and grandiose sociopaths. She's one of those petty, boring sociopaths who turn up in police stations every day. The movie takes great pains to spell out all the terrible things that were done to Vanessa but none of it seems to have had any effect on her. Vanessa has no depth or inner life and cruises through her horrible existence like a shark looking for the next fat seal to eat.That might not have been a problem if Freeway had become the kind of thriller suggested by writer/director Bright's very clever left turn. In plot dominated tales, it's not always necessary for characters to be relatable or even all that interesting. By essentially becoming a study of a two-dimensional character, though, the film only highlights the lack of connection the viewer can have with Vanessa.Witherspoon is good here, as is Keifer Sutherland and Brooke Shields. Brittany Murphy has an odd role as a scarred paint-huffer and Dan Hedaya and Wolfgang Bodison are fine as two detectives, though the movie can't keep straight which one of them is supposed to be the good cop and which the bad cop.In most respects, Freeway is perfectly acceptable entertainment, with reasonably good writing, directing and acting. I can't shake the feeling that it could easily have been more than that.

Freeway is a black comic take on Little Red Riding Hood.Reese Witherspoon plays a rather sweet and innocent looking young woman off to find her grandmother. Kiefer Sutherland plays a psychological serial killer, although not a fully paid up one but the free or Lite version.The film's strengths are the performance by Witherspoon who brings the character to life, and the screenplay which is funny in the extreme. Indeed I would be surprised if Witherspoon had not been nominated for an award in the role.Freeway is not a very politically correct film and is all the more enjoyable for it! This aspect of it could cause offence and as such has probably hindered it's publicity.Pros - Twisted, Dark, Comic TaleCons - None come to mindOverall - Baddass

Freeway is written and directed by Matthew Bright. It stars Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Dan Hedaya, Wolfgang Bodison, Brooke Shields & Brittany Murphy. Plot is darkly based around the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale and sees young runaway Vanessa Lutz (Witherspoon) hit the road after her parents are arrested. Setting off to visit her grandmother she agrees to a lift from the kind and well spoken Bob Wolverton (Sutherland), only to find that he's not as nice as she first thought. He in turn is in for a big surprise himself since Vanessa is more than capable of looking after herself.Twisted and richly humorous, Matthew Bright's movie oozes originality and quite frankly deserves to be better appreciated: never mind better known! Going into it for a first time completely oblivious to its structure will arguably aid the experience. Suffice to say that the less known about it prior to viewing it the better. All I have to say is that it's violent, sweary and contains very sexually explicit dialogue, so if those things are likely to offend then perhaps stay away from it. But what if I offer up that those things are dealt with a satirical bent? That the tough scenes, and some of them are very tough, are basis to a caustic narrative about social hypocrisy and the often stupidity of the law? Interested? You should be, because once viewed you're unlikely to forget it. It's no surprise to see Oliver Stone's name etched onto the production credits, since this very much feels like a dirty second cousin to his Natural Born Killers. I'd argue that here we have the better acted film with Witherspoon and Sutherland giving virtuoso performances: with admirable support coming from the likes of Bodison, Shields and Murphy.One of the most undervalued film's of the 90s? You bet it is! 8.5/10