Freeway (1996).
Freeway opens in a classroom, a sentence written on the board that would be easy pickings for a first grader. As the teacher tries to walk the student through reading the words ‘The cat drinks milk’, we pan over and see that this is not a first grade classroom. It’s a high school, and Vanessa Lutz, played by Reese Witherspoon, is attempting to read the sentence. Shortly after, we learn why she’s so uneducated - she’s from a truly broken home (although not even her environment can explain her odd southern accent, considering they live in San Diego). Her drug addicted mother is prostituting herself outside of the motel in which they live and her stepfather tries to molest her while he’s high inside of the motel. They’re both busted in a sex-for-sale sting, and instead of going into the foster system, Vanessa hightails it, that is until her car breaks down on the freeway. She’s picked up by a man under the guise of being helpful, and what follows is a modern, twisted adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood.
The film isn’t subtle about it’s source material, from the hand drawn opening credits sequence featuring a wolf pursuing scantily clad women, to the red basket Vanessa leaves her home with when she goes on the lamb looking for her grandmother’s house. Hell, the man who picks her up is named Bob Wolverton. If you know the story of Little Red Riding Hood, you’ll know how it’s going to end (complete with an actual utterance of “My, what big teeth you have.” during the film’s climax), but trust me - the journey will be anything but predictable. The film was written and directed by Matthew Bright, a member of the band Oingo Boingo. By his own admittance in one of the film’s special feature interviews, he explains that he sat down to write without an outline, without knowing where the film was going, and it shows.
The cover boasts both Reese Witherspoon and Kiefer Sutherland, and while Sutherland is great as Bob, this is Reese Witherspoon’s film. The character of Vanessa is such an interesting one. On one hand, she’s, as Bob calls her, a stupid “garbage person”, one of the people civilization has discarded, left to the fringes of society where you do what you can to survive. Yet it’s her animalistic will to survive that drew me in. She might not make the best decisions, but she makes definitive decisions, whether that’s smacking around a police officer or shooting someone four times to make sure they’re dead, she’s got conviction. Her dialogue is also so weird at times that I found myself sitting there just kind of smirking. Lines like, “He had this disease, called, um, Wisenheimers, I think. You know, where your brain cells run out into your pee.”, and “Well I get clausterphobic suckin’ strange dick!” are sure to make you wonder what’s going to come out of her mouth the next time she opens it. Some of her mannerisms - her courtroom scenes come to mind - are so goddamn funny. Between this film and Fear, which both came out in 1996, you can see why she became such a hot item in Hollywood. She owned this role.
Keifer Sutherland is always great as a villain, and it’s no different here. His sociopathic breakdown when he reveals that he is the film’s wolf is quite something. And his look with a prosthetic later on is extremely unsettling - I had no problem empathizing with a diner waitress stunned by his look. All of the supporting characters in the film are great as well and there are a ton of recognizable faces. Clueless alums Dan Hedaya and Brittany Murphy have small but memorable roles, and Bokeem Woodbine, Amanda Plummer, Wolfgang Bodison, Brooke Shields, and Tori from Saved by the Bell (and her real-life twin sister) are all good with limited screen time.
I had never seen this film before. When it came out in 1996, I probably figured it was a Hitcher retread and dismissed it. Other than what was on the back of the box, I knew nothing about it. IMDB lists this as a crime drama thriller, and it took me a good thirty minutes to understand that Matthew Bright was not playing it straight. This is a fucking comedy through and through. It’s a dark comedy, but it’s a comedy nonetheless, and once I embraced that aspect of the filmmaking, it was a really fun, very strange ride. Technically, there’s nothing that stands out about the movie. There was nothing impressive about the camera work. In fact, I found John Thomas’s cinematography extremely boring. I’d be hard pressed to tell you about a shot in the film that I found interesting. The music was also extremely forgettable, which is disappointing, considering Bright’s Oingo Boingo bandmate Danny Elfman composed the score.
There are a few things I need to mention before I wrap this review up. First off, fuck whoever the foley artist was for the kissing scenes. There are two scenes where Vanessa kisses her fiance Chopper and they are deep, nasty kisses - it looks like Bokeem Woodbine is trying to suck the fucking tongue out of Reese Witherspoon’s mouth, and the amplified sound effects of gross, wet mouth sounds are absolutely disgusting. It sounded like someone was squishing up tomatoes or something. Second, Vanessa is trying to get from San Diego to her grandmother’s house in Stockton, California, which is about eight or so hours north of there. I lived in Stockton for a while, probably six years in total, so when they showed the zip code as 94132, it gave me pause. That’s a San Francisco zip. A little research would have been pretty easy to do.
Minor quibbles aside, Freeway is a wild yet grounded fairytale that’s sure to entertain. At the very least, it’s worth watching for Reese Witherspoon’s dare I say iconic performance that she’ll surely never replicate. If you want to see Reese calling people ‘cunts’ and dropping hard ‘R’ n-bombs, look no further. I noticed Oliver Stone was one of the producers on the film, and when it was over, it made complete sense. This film feels like the slutty, trashy, offensive cousin to his Natural Born Killers, with a female anti-hero that’s just as violent but certainly lacks Mallory’s codependency issues. I’ve also never seen Freeway 2, a modern adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, which is also directed by Bright, and this film definitely makes me want to check that out.
Vinegar Syndrome presents this film in 4K for the first time with a new scan and restoration from the 35mm original camera negative. It looks great, and I really noticed the picture quality during the scenes featuring Reese’s red leather jacket in the beginning of the film. There are two commentaries present, both featuring writer/director Matthew Bright. One is a holdover from a DVD version of the film and the other is brand new. There are also new interviews with Bright, a producer, the editor, and actors Wolfgang Bodison, Robert Peters, and the Creel twins, as well as archival interviews with Bright, Amanda Plummer, Danny Elfman, Oliver Stone, and producer Samuel Hadida. Rounding out the special features are some raw takes, the trailer, a standard EPK thing, and some alternate scenes from the R-rated cut, which cut out a small insert of a pornographic magazine and a shot of grandma tied up near the end of the film.
