Freeway (Widescreen Edition) [Import]

The freeway is the road and where does it lead...where all roads lead? These are some of the images here in an oliver stone(I believe he exec'd) movie though he did not direct, and reese appears and acting as a young girl, who's been through foster homes, and may have been sexually abused at a young age, and the film we try to uncover aspects of her and the counsellor whom she eventually kills? The movie plays like a detective story..and where does it lead us? At film's beginning Reese with her southern accent, amidst the spanish musio deep in Texas, has a Black boyfriend, and is all this her revenge at how family and the authorities treated her...the racist ideas in this film? The abuse? Abust at a few years of age, which begs the question, was she abused and by whom, and did the stepfather do it, or was she told that? A very confused young person? Then a long car ride, with a counsellor, of boys, and he seems not quite well, and seems the voyeur, preoccupied with her a white girl's relations with the Black gentleman, is the voyeuristic tendencies concern with her, or a disguised form of racism, and Reese's character who's traumatized finds his mal therapy and counter transferrance abusive, as he represents all that's going wrong in her life, and shoots him, and he ends up whhel chair bound, and she laughs at him and all he represents, and more music of this identified 'victim', who is jailed, burns down a building, likes to flick lighters off and on, and lights a cigarettte at film's end like she just enjoyed a sexual experience after murdering her counsellor, and vicariously all other authoritites who abused her..she is diagnosed in the film of anti social personality disorder...however that may be an after effect of the abuse and her trauma which is actually her primal ailment...Reese appears sngry at just about everyone..and not for all tastes..but she was actually abused but who are her abusers, and the way she plays this role says everything about what the film makers want you to take from it which the director in a bonus feature starts off with his concern for girls or he likes girls or something like that..

There is nothing sacred in FREEWAY. Movies like this get your friendly neighborhood "family values" handwringers drooling in righteousness. Oliver Stone was executive producer, which may be one reason why it feels just like an one of his movies. Yet I think its far better than the self-indulgent NATURAL BORN KILLERS (definitely superior to U-TURN). Its pretenses are much lower, and then there's Reese Witherspoon.

This is possibly her best performance; she definitely doesn't play it safe here. An endearing, sociopathic and illiterate 15-year old who "had an anger problem, but not any more." It's fun to think of the LEGALLY BLONDE fanatics renting this and being horrified at their princess turning tricks and having a black boyfriend. At the same time, she really does do interesting movies. ELECTION is way different, yet I think is a great companion to this movie with its dark, subversive humor. AMERICAN PSYCHO and CRUEL INTENTIONS are by no means good movies, but we're not talking Sandra Bullock's stuff here.

Anyway, FREEWAY is in its own class, taking urban white trash clichés in absurd and droll directions. Vanessa Lutz's prostitute mother, pederast step-father and their crack rocks are taken away by the County cops, and she just wants to get to grandmother's trailer park where everything will be okay. (Her dream sequence, with a trailer park paradise with kitsch giraffe statutes makes for an hysterical ideal) So she sets off, on the I-5 in southern California. She eventually falls into the hands of bourgeois child therapist and ambitious serial killer Bob Wolverton (Keifer), who manipulates her into talking about herself. This is one of the best parts of the movie.

Sutherland is fine as the wolf. The two detectives are hilarious. Dan Hedaya as the slightly bemused older guy, and Wolfgang Bodison as the patronizing young guy who Vanessa beats the crap out of at one point.

Strange moral debates constantly play out in the subtext of the movie, and I think enhance its humor. There are few well-written movies that even approach the black humor and socially sacriligeous quality of this movie. It's up there with REPO MAN and WAY OF THE GUN. Director Matthew Bright's commentary is pretty interesting, especially talking about the dynamics of filming on a very limited budget. Also, through his constant remarks about girls, girls' hair, Reese, and hints of his own perversions, he comes across as a very weird fellow on his own. So it is worth listening to if you're a fan of the movie.

This was the second Reese Witherspoon movie I saw, and the first one where I realized how brilliant she is as an actress.

The other reviewers have already raved about the great writing, and the performances given by Witherspoon and Sutherland. And they're completely right.

If you want a smart, edgy update to the classic Little Red Riding Hood fable, get this DVD.