



Dir. Matthew Bright





The older I get, the more I appreciate going into a film as cold a possible. It’s a fallacy that trailers are more spoilery than they the used to be, especially for low budget/horror/exploitation movies needing to ensure maximum ticket sales. But trailers are more ubiquitous today, available anywhere with a screen and internet access at any given moment. It takes a lot of discipline to steer clear of any trailers, reviews, discussions, etc. that might skew your expectations, not just for contemporary films, but really any film that may have been even just a little popular at any point in film history. Of course this isn’t a good thing or a bad thing (or maybe it’s both a good thing and a bad thing), as an overwhelmingly saturated media landscape constantly battles with our brains for attention and money, time seems to become exponentially more limited, and sometimes you just don’t want to risk wasting it on a movie that you’re not at least likely to maybe enjoy (hopefully). Still, there’s no greater pleasure (for filmgoers) to pop in (or load up in this case) a movie with little to no idea of it where it will go, and to be delighted at what unfolds in front of you.





So I guess if you’re one of the people who enjoys that feeling of discovery, you should stop reading this until you go watch Freeway...but don’t watch any of the spoilerific trailers...





All I knew going into Freeway was that it was a thriller starring Reese Witherspoon as a teenage runaway who gets picked up by a man who happens to be a serial killer played by Kiefer Sutherland, in a modern, urban spin on Little Red Riding Hood. But holy shit that doesn’t begin to explain what it really is; a dark, DARK comedy about class, misogyny, and the American criminal justice system. Our Little Red analogue is Witherspoon’s Vanessa Lutz, an illiterate, expletive prone 16 year old living in a Southern L.A. motel with her sex worker mother and lecherous stepfather, who are quickly arrested on prostitution, drug, and child abuse related charges, leaving Vanessa staring back into the maw of the foster care system. She opts instead to handcuff her Social Worker to a bed frame, escaping with intentions of living with her grandmother setting off a twisty-turny chain of events that goes both toward, and opposite of, where you expect it would.





The first act of the film feels almost hilariously problematic, painting Vanessa and her world as a broad “white trash” caricature. Her drug addled mother and step-father especially are played so over-the-top (intentionally so) that they seem like they could have come out of Forbidden Zone (1982), of which director Matthew Bright was an integral part. They’re uncomfortable characterizations that seem like they’re supposed to be laughed at. Still, as the film goes on, Vanessa herself proves written and brilliantly performed by Witherspoon with enough agency and depth to classify as, not always likable, but multi-dimensional, albeit in the crude and sometimes almost cartoonish world she inhabits. Furthermore, the film is highly critical of cops and courts. The crackdown on Vanessa’s mother and step-father is portrayed with contempt for the arresting officers, showcasing their sadistic, self-righteous pleasure in brutalizing people they see as beneath them, along with indifference to the fate of a minor they view as a lost cause, the lone female officer balking at the idea that she might house Vanessa for a while after destroying her (admittedly flawed) family and home. Without spoiling too much of what happens, social class, status, and appearance also play a big role in the struggle between Vanessa, Bob (played varyingly with quiet charm, gleeful, leering menace, and hilariously pitiful emasculation by Sutherland) and the state, with judicial systems and law enforcement further portrayed as cold, contemptuous, and/or otherwise incompetent.





The final moments of the story return the whole Little Red Riding Hood thing to front and center, I think to the film’s detriment. While fittingly batty a climax, it seems shoehorned, and while not completely unsatisfying, felt like a bit of a shoulder shrug compared to directions the ending could have taken. Still this is a wonderful, gritty, sleazy, hilarious, satirical, problematic, exciting, gonzo, anxiety inducing roller coaster of a movie with sharp writing, fantastic performances all around (Brittany Murphy(!) [RIP] shows up at one point for another sorta problematic but well acted characterization [and it’s Brittany Murphy!]), a solid score by Danny Elfman, and some inspired cinematography. It’s trash for sure, but it’s weird, 90’s, art-infused, maverick, post-Tarantino trash that demands to be experienced!