Freeway

You ever recommend a film to a friend only to have the relationship strained after they take you up on your advice and spend their hard earned monies watching a film that they end up describing as ‘terrible', ‘awful' and ‘tormenting'?

This was the case when I recommended 1996's Freeway to a friend. Now granted, I had not seen the film in eight years, but I had fond memories and I could even remember the Roger Ebert/Gene Siskel show giving the film a recommendation back when movie reviews actually meant something. So it was therefore without fear that I challenged my friend (let's call him ‘Jim' to protect the guilty) to rent Freeway after we discussed one day how much we enjoyed films that were two blocks away from norm.

Three days later, there was a threatening phone call and a doll looking very much like me with a pin in its back hanging from my mailbox. I knew at that moment, that maybe I had made a mistake, and I purchased Freeway at the local DVD Warehouse to reacquaint myself with what has now become a friendship speed bump.

Freeway stars Reese Witherspoon and Keifer Sutherland in an updated version of the Little Red Riding Hood tale. Reese plays Vanessa Lutz, a young misguided teenager who sets out to meet her grandmother after police bust her mother and stepfather for drug possession and soliciting. While on the run from social services, Vanessa meets Bob Wolverton (Sutherland) who offers her a lift after her can breaks down on the high way.

Bob comes across as a sweet guy. A counselor for boys who offers sound advice and really seems to care. But as we all know in Hollywood, that is too good to be true. Just when Bob seems to gain the trust of Vanessa, he becomes increasingly agitated and violent. Vanessa relies on instinct and reaches for a gun given to her by her fiancé and shoots Bob. Four times.

As Vanessa goes to juvenile hall awaiting a trial, she finds out that Bob didn't die. Bob made his way to a local hospital and although saved from the big cloud in the sky, Bob is a hideous self with a deformed face and electronic voice box.

The movie then follows Vanessa as she violently escapes from jail and runs to her grandmother's house where Bob is in hiding a la the fairy tale. So with the police in hot pursuit it becomes a cat and mouse game that explodes with gunfire at a nearby trailer park.

So the movie was over, and quite frankly, I liked it even more the second time. The violence was ever present and the language (the movie was originally NC-17 due to it's explicit dialogue) was like a power drill to the forehead. No cuss word was left out. From A to Z, Reese Witherspoon spoke more profanity than in the rest of her filmography combined.

Upon my second viewing, I wondered if Reese Witherspoon has ever been challenged as much as writer/director Matthew Bright pushed her here. She ends up pulling off someone who can be very kind hearted, yet has a temper this side of Hannibal Lector. Kudos also to Keifer Sutherland who is no stranger to playing the weird unlikable characters. In Bob Wolverton, he gives us a creature that is so heinous and hideous that you will add this to your memory banks along with The Lost Boys and Stand By Me, whenever someone mentions his name.

I was also reintroduced to actors that I had forgotten contributed to the greatness of this independent. Dan Hedaya (Cheers), Amanda Plumber (Pulp Fiction), Brittany Murphy (Don't Say A Word) and Brooke Shields are just some of the talent that cross our viewing paths throughout this odyssey.

So now that it was over, I wondered where I lost Jim on the road to acceptance. Was it the time the teenager was describing in detail having oral sex with her stepfather? Was it the scene when Bob tells her he is going to have sex with her after he kills her? Maybe it was when Vanessa walks into a local diner covered in Bob's blood or we first see Bob after his attack with one eye gone and his head stuck between four spikes resting on his shoulders. Who knows? All I can write is that after viewing Freeway eight years later, I offer no apologies. The movie is brisk, violent and profane. I liken it to a Tarantino wet dream, and I would recommend it again no matter what the cost.

P.S. Jim, call me.

www.gregsrants.com

Based on the classic Grimm Brothers tale, Little Red Riding Hood; Freeway is the disjointed and frankly weird odyssey following a young girl on the way to her grandmother's home. The film begins much like any other hitchhiking film, with a young girl being picked up by a slightly sinister driver. However, you won't be able to predict where it's going to go from there, as Freeway continually puts its characters in absurd situations and delivers the unexpected. The plot doesn't exactly adhere to the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and after the basics have been laid down, it's basically anyone's game right down to the gripping and hilarious climax. The film sees Reese Witherspoon's juvenile delinquent being picked up by Kiefer Sutherland's child psychologist after fleeing from her home when her mother and step father are arrested. After telling the psychologist of her relationship with her step father, she soon realises that he's enjoying what she's saying a little too much; and it's not long before she asks him if he's the infamous I-5 killer, and he doesn't do anything to convince her he's not...

Freeway doesn't introduce any characters that are particularly likable, and all are guilty to a degree. Most audience members will be on the side of Witherspoon's character, as although she certainly has personality problems, she's great fun to watch and her twisted logic isn't usually far from being spot on! Witherspoon got one of her best roles in this film, and really does carry it despite her young age. Kiefer Sutherland stars alongside her, and it's rather odd seeing him in the psycho role after getting so used to him being Jack Bauer in 24. He does do it great, however. Perhaps the best thing about this film is the pitch black humour that goes hand in hand brilliantly with the absurdity of the piece. The plot is really freewheeling, and the film jumps from road thriller to prison drama to the court room in the blink of an eye, and this helps to ensure that the audience is always kept on their toes. This film won't appeal to people that don't like their movies to be pitch black and unpleasant, but anyone who enjoys a good does of absurdity shouldn't hesitate to track this film down!

Reese Witherspoon has never made a better movie than Freeway...Although I respect her for wanting to do more romantic/family oriented movies because of her daughter, I don't think even she realizes how amazing she was playing this role...She was completely foul mouthed and hot tempered, but her timing and attitude was fantastic..I recently realized how this movie is and has been potential for cult classic....Reese Witherspoon never mentions this movie in any interviews and I wish she would because I would like to hear her thoughts on playing Vanessa Julia Lutz...

In my opinion, this was hands downs Reese Witherspoon's best role before Legally Blonde. I wished she played more roles like this, (urban, raunchy, touch, the trailer pk side wasn't bad at all neither). After watching this, You can see she has been hollyweird whitewashed (the only way to get an academy award) now. But this role in Freeway truly tells me that she has depth of character for the film industry. This is one of my oldies but goodies I've seen now more than ten times already. Hey Reese, can you bless with a role like this again? No harm in asking.

I know, it may seem ridiculous to some, but actually, even after all these years (now well into 2012), this is still a film to watch, and no one could have delivered the key role more perfectly than Reese Witherspoon. She is simply spectacularly spot on with her characterization of the theme and culture that is her character here.

The story is a bit hard edged for some, but sadly, not entirely outside the realms of reality in the current world.

Do characters like hers in this film really exist as portrayed? Absolutely yes. Do characters like that portrayed by Sutherland, the predatory pedophile sociopath who appears to be so acceptably "normal" to the outside world? Absolutely yes, as recent history has shown only too clearly.

On the surface this may have appeared to be a sort of whacky, creepy crime thriller, but actually, if one actually takes the time to watch this film, there is much more to this than the ad copy may have suggested at the time.

It is still currently viable, to this very day . . . has stood the test of time.

And it is absolutely one of Reese's best ever performances.

Sadly, her more recent work has sort of flattened out into much less risky, complex roles, but hey, a great actress she is.