That was an excellent one.

Really Surprised!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Matthew Bright's Freeway is the most effed up, disturbing take on the Little Red Riding Hood tale you'll find, and the only time Reese Witherspoon totally cut loose, got down n' dirty to truly give a performance straight from the gutter. You can't spell gutter without gut, which is the primary place this film operates from, gag reflex and all, and the same goes for her wickedly funny firebrand of a performance. The filmmakers have taken every minuscule plot point from Riding Hood and deliberately thought up the most disgusting and deplorable ways to drag them through the mud, churning forth a film that is so sickeningly perverted that you can't take your eyes or ears off it once, kind of like a fresh, glistening pile of roadkill on the interstate that induces retching, yet is compelling in a sense, even attractive in its ability to morbidly hold your attention by being something that's outside the norm. Witherspoon is Vanessa Lutz, a trailer park baby who's been dealt a rough hand in life on all fronts. Her kindly boyfriend (Bokeem Woodbine) is tied up in dat gang life, her mom (Amanda Plummer) is an unstable slut-bag and her stepdad (Michael T. Weiss) has a case of… wandering hands, shall we say. Vanessa picks up and leaves town to go visit her grandmother, but no sooner does she hit the road, she's tossed from the frying pan right into the fire when she's picked up by psychiatric counsellor Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland). Bob is your classic clean cut, mild mannered yuppie, save for the fact that he also happens to be a dangerous pedophiliac serial killer, and she's now in his car. Vanessa is a force to be reckoned with though, as Bob soon finds out, and the two of them wage sleazy war all over the state, until one or both are either dead or incarcerated. It's so much heinous mayhem and depravity that one reaches saturation point and just had to go with the grimy flow, either that or walk out of the theatre, but that'd make you a bitch. Witherspoon and Sutherland are having a howling good time, each sending up their Hollywood image in the type of roles that John Waters or Wayne Kramer would think up some lonely night. Bob is the worst type of offender, and one has to laugh when he's wheeled into court, facially deformed at the hands of Vanessa, and she proceeds to savagely berate him on his looks, dropping insults that you can hear whistling through the air, delivered like gunshots by Witherspoon, then only barely twenty years old, who has never been this good in any film since. Funnier still is Wolverton's naive wife looking on in aghast horror as only Brooke Shields can do with that soap opera stare. Other talents include Dan Hedaya as a stoic Detective, Conchata Farrell, Tara Subkoff and Brittany Murphy as a creepy cell mate Vanessa meets while in holding. Anyone claiming to be a fan of Witherspoon who hasn't seen this just needs to take the time and do so, she's just the most foul mouthed, violent, adorably profane trashbag pixie you could ever imagine, especially when on screen with Sutherland, who has never been more evil or intimidating. This is one fairy tale you wouldn't show the kids, but it still stands as my favourite cinematic version of Riding Hood to this day. There's a sequel out there somewhere too, but I can't weigh in on it as I haven't had the time so far to check it out. I doubt it reaches the heights of sordid delight achieved here though.

FREEWAY *Minor Spoilers* Within the first few minutes of Freeway we learn of the "I-5 Killer", a serial-killer on a murder spree targeting young women. If we can assume the filmmaker knew their business, we can also assume they listened to Chekov: if you hang a gun on the wall in Chapter 1, you'd better be ready to use it by Chapter 3.Then there's the literal gun the heroine receives in the opening act.Have some faith in Freeway. Both these guns are going off soon enough.Nobody told me before I watched it that Freeway flopped in the box-office or that it developed a ravenous cult-following (read as: had more to offer than your average mindless film). Nobody told me anything about it all: I flipped through a slew of listings, mistook it for a road-film, and settled back for what I thought would be a Kerouac-ian adventure.So when the opening rolled to a backdrop of hyper-sexualized Little Red Riding Hood paintings, with the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Keifer Sutherland on the credits, I didn't know what the hell to think. How was it that in twenty-six years of existence I'd never once heard of this movie, with big names (that my generation grew up on) starring in the lead roles? And what does Little Red Riding Hood have to do with it? Which gets back to the title of this review. Trigger Warnings: Everything.Reese Witherspoon stars as Vanessa Lutz, a teen with a sub-kindergarten reading level and the worst sort of home life. "Troubled" doesn't begin to cover it. Her mother's a prostitute; her step-father's an ex-con on parole with an obvious predilection for pedophilia. Both are addicted to narcotics (crack or meth, I assumed, though I'll be the first to admit my absolute ignorance of hard drugs and associated paraphernalia). Vanessa's boyfriend seems to be the most positive, stable influence in her life, and he's a gang-banger. We're rammed straight into this degradation, and if anything the degeneracy and crudity only amplify throughout the story, dropping without any consideration for the consequences the exact kind of four-letter words which land you in hot water with the ratings board.Watching the backdrop unfold left me with that sick feeling you get when you step barefoot on dog crap: technically you've not been harmed in any way, but you're violated and soiled regardless.And despite all that, Witherspoon already brought a fiery effervescence to the role. Not to say Vanessa's bubbly about her life, but she rolls with the punches without becoming a punching bag. Case in point: when her step-father (fresh off a hit from the crack-pipe) tries to fondle her, Vanessa snaps at him without hesitation, and then calmly resumes watching television as if nothing happened.So when the cops raided the house and hauled her parents off to jail, it didn't come as any surprise when Vanessa – slyly, but with an almost naive contrition and genuine innocence – cuffs the child-services agent to a bedpost and skips town.When Vanessa hastily packs her get-away bag, it's all a red basket. And she's wearing her red jacket. And off to see her grandmother.Kiefer Sutherland stars opposite as Bob Wolverton, a seemingly kindly, well-intentioned counselor who Vanessa meets during her getaway. When her car breaks down, Sutherland pulls over to offer assistance, and when it's clear the car is donezos even offers her a ride up to LA. He's dressed in a professorial tweed jacket, elbow patches and all. For a moment I thought we'd seen our Lawful Good character at long last. Someone who'd shine a light on all this filth surrounding Vanessa, who'd offer her a way out. When he begins to counsel Vanessa and she opens up about her challenging childhood and abuse, it seems someone at last has taken a keen interest in Vanessa's wellbeing.Well, I was right about half of it, anyways. We had Little Red Riding Hood. And we had the grandmother.There's only one other character in the fairy-tale, folks.In the drama that ensues, Sutherland and especially Witherspoon bring a complexity and skill to their respective roles that I'd never have expected in a million years. I know Witherspoon best from Legally Blond, which my mother must have watched on VHS a hundred times throughout my childhood, and Sutherland of course will always be Agent Jack Bauer in my eyes. Not to detract from either character, actors, or productions – I enjoyed Legally Blond as much as any male pre-teen could, and I ate up 24 even in its worst seasons – but I didn't expect anything Oscar-worthy from Sutherland or Witherspoon.The American public wasn't ready for it, and neither were the censorship ding-dongs, but Freeway is nothing short of dramatic gold.Sutherland and Witherspoone play two characters taken to 11, larger than life personalities, and they leave it all on the field in these performances. Two titans (albeit very different people) pitted one against the other as the plot twists and turns through the sordid affair. There wasn't any other obvious reason I should be enthralled by Freeway – nothing special about the cinematography or scoring, and the sets are LA backlots in typical Hollywood fashion – and if I'm being honest, my inner snob wanted to hate Freeway for its crudeness.But I couldn't not like it. Witherspoon and Sutherland, whether you like or despise their characters, are too demanding of your emotional investment to truly hate Freeway.At the box-office Freeway failed to bring in more than a tenth of its modest budget, estimated at around 3 million. By commercial standards, it was a failure. Maybe audiences in 1996, hip-deep in the prosperous dot-com bubble, couldn't connect.But when they write the textbooks for film students of the future, this is one they'd do well to include.

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.

Freeway is written and directed by Matthew Bright. It stars Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Dan Hedaya, Wolfgang Bodison, Brooke Shields & Brittany Murphy. Plot is darkly based around the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale and sees young runaway Vanessa Lutz (Witherspoon) hit the road after her parents are arrested. Setting off to visit her grandmother she agrees to a lift from the kind and well spoken Bob Wolverton (Sutherland), only to find that he's not as nice as she first thought. He in turn is in for a big surprise himself since Vanessa is more than capable of looking after herself.Twisted and richly humorous, Matthew Bright's movie oozes originality and quite frankly deserves to be better appreciated: never mind better known! Going into it for a first time completely oblivious to its structure will arguably aid the experience. Suffice to say that the less known about it prior to viewing it the better. All I have to say is that it's violent, sweary and contains very sexually explicit dialogue, so if those things are likely to offend then perhaps stay away from it. But what if I offer up that those things are dealt with a satirical bent? That the tough scenes, and some of them are very tough, are basis to a caustic narrative about social hypocrisy and the often stupidity of the law? Interested? You should be, because once viewed you're unlikely to forget it. It's no surprise to see Oliver Stone's name etched onto the production credits, since this very much feels like a dirty second cousin to his Natural Born Killers. I'd argue that here we have the better acted film with Witherspoon and Sutherland giving virtuoso performances: with admirable support coming from the likes of Bodison, Shields and Murphy.One of the most undervalued film's of the 90s? You bet it is! 8.5/10