Interstate (2007)

Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The first half was pretty decent. Nice mood, setting, great shots along the New Mexico highway. Loved the bombastic, rundown pit-stops. This had real potential for some highly entertaining film noir. But alas, the last 20 or 30 minutes was mostly Edgar screaming and whining at his two female hitchhiker companions. He totally wimped out. He could have used force to extract himself from their company, but instead chose to snivel. He could have given them some cash (from Alan's wallet) and dropped them off almost anywhere. Instead, he allows them to call the shots, even though they have no weapons.I appreciated that it didn't turn into a sex-fest or a horror-fest. Unfortunately, an ear-grating shout-fest with uninteresting dialog is not much of an improvement. This could have been so much better. Lose the screaming and unbecoming wimpiness on Edgar's part, and I would have easily upgraded this to a 7 or higher. Also, stomping on some bags of heroin when there's an unstable, drugged-out girl pointing a gun at you doesn't quite seem like the smart thing to do. Good grief.

I normally don't round up with my ratings (I would put this at a 7.5 if IMDb had decimal ratings), but I'm giving this an 8 because I think it's gotten a tough break from existing ratings, which I hadn't reviewed before I rented it.I was attracted to the film because I am familiar with and enjoy the region it is set in.All of the characters and acting are good. I didn't like the sacrilege of the Jesus burger, but it was creative. The FX section of the DVD really showed interesting use of special effects to create interesting locations out of run down places. The choice of the 1963 (or 1964) Lincoln gave the film a cool look that fit the setting. The film has an enjoyable somewhat psychedelic visual style. The plot unfolded in a way that was plausible, but not predictable, but was not over complicated to the point of being tiring. The scene with the cop was suspenseful and surprising. Veronica was very seductive and entertaining, a well chosen foil for the laid back Edgar (the nice guy who just stumbles deeper and deeper into trouble). Edgar was hilarious when Veronica told him the gum was laced with LSD. Gloria also fit the chemistry well. Chloe played the straight role of the mostly normal girlfriend convincingly. Allen was well played and the film threw an interesting fake at the audience by suggesting that he might be a serial killer with the blue garment that Gloria uses as a pillow in the back seat of the car. It all tied up well at the end.All in all, the director really did a great job considering the low budget, sometimes a lower budget can make for a superior film, as many of today's film clichés (long boring chases/action sequences etc) are expensive to produce. A smaller budget can force more creativity with what they have. This was a better than average film, produced with a fraction of the average budget, and a refreshing break from the same old Hollywood stuff.

Oh joy. Here's another one of those movies that should never make it to DVD. Interstate is barely a half-step above a student's final project at an overly expensive film school. Only a few moments of filmmaking in the entire thing even flirt with professionalism. The rest of it is a collection of bad acting that couldn't get you a job as an extra on a telenovela, a story that plays out like someone came up with it when they were drunk, dialog that sounds like a schizophrenic talking to himself and editing that makes you wish you were a narcoleptic.Young lovers Edgar and Chloe (Shiloh Fernandez and Chase Mallen) are driving from Montreal to Los Angeles, where Chloe has an audition for a sitcom. Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and they only have enough money to guy a bus ticket for Chloe. As she luckily gets to ride out of this film, Edgar is left to hitchhike the rest of the way. He gets picked up by the oily, scraggly, squirrelly Alan (Walter Pena) and after they have a couple of inane conversations, Alan winds up dead. If Edgar did what any normal person would do and go to the cops, the movie would be over. So, of course, he has to behave like a spastic moron and drive off with Alan's body in the car and then dump the corpse in the desert.After that, Edgar hooks up with Veronica and Gloria (Alexandra Ackerman and Jodi Stanford). They're sisters who are on screen for an hour and behave like real human beings for about 32 seconds. The rest of the time they're either vamping it up like they're in a softcore porn flick that's had all the sex cut out or dumbly servicing the Almighty Plot Hammer. There's some stuff about a drug deal, Edgar being the world's biggest wuss, some thugs who apparently walk around with assault rifles and fedoras, a scene that's arbitrarily shot at weird angles straight out of the old Batman TV show and a secret that's so pedestrian you expect it to get run over by a car while jaywalking.In case I haven't been clear, Interstate is not good. There's not even any nudity or violence and the profanity in it is the sort of unimaginative stuff you hear on middle school playgrounds. These filmmakers demonstrate that they can do all of the technical things you have to do to make a movie, but they don't do any of it well. This film is like a 72 year old man with no feet running a marathon. You might be impressed that it could be done…but would you really want to sit and watch it?Interstate is one of those movies where after you rent it, you feel like you've been taken advantage of. The people who made it had to know it sucked. The people who distributed it had to know it sucked. All they cared about, however, was conning unsuspecting video store customers out of their hard earned money. So, if you ever see this DVD sitting on the shelf and think about getting it, do yourself a favor and just send the money to one of those Nigerian princes who keep e-mailing you. You'll get the same experience and you won't waste 89 minutes of your life sitting in front of the TV.

Rating is closer to 6.5. It's good enough that I rounded up after seeing that the IMDb viewers as a whole were rating it far too low. It's the rough equivalent of a good 70s B movie. The acting isn't great, but it is all believable and helps pull the film along.Basically, it's a somewhat smarter, more believable version of a hitchhiker films that typically result in power car chases and crashes, blah blah blah. Fortunately, none of that is involved.It's more like an early attempt to make a film like Lost Highway or U-Turn.One of the more disappointing elements was the ending along with the ending music. It didn't kill it, but the director/writer really needs to work on that.