Freeway (1996)
Lost amid the post-Tarantino losers that once littered the shelves of every video store in the U.S., Matthew Bright’s Freeway failed to attract the following that it deserved. A caustic fable for our troubled times, Freeway customizes its Little Red Riding Hood overhaul with trash-television topics of our recent past: crack whores, drive-by shootings, and serial killer angst. The result is a darkly hilarious comedy that surpasses executive producer Oliver Stone’s own take on the subject, the fatuous Natural Born Killers (1994).
Seemingly launched from the bowels of The Jerry Springer Show, writer/director Bright’s script spews forth undiluted talk-show television sensationalism. When her drug-addled prostitute mother Ramona (Amanda Plummer, “Honey Bunny” of Pulp Fiction) and crack-peddling dimwit stepfather Larry (Michael T. Weiss) are hauled off by the vice squad, teenage Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) avoids landing in a youth home (again) by stealing her caseworker’s jalopy and speeding off for grandma’s house, her boyfriend’s handgun tucked inside her handbag.
Seemingly launched from the bowels of The Jerry Springer Show, writer/director Bright’s script spews forth undiluted talk-show television sensationalism. When her drug-addled prostitute mother Ramona (Amanda Plummer, “Honey Bunny” of Pulp Fiction) and crack-peddling dimwit stepfather Larry (Michael T. Weiss) are hauled off by the vice squad, teenage Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) avoids landing in a youth home (again) by stealing her caseworker’s jalopy and speeding off for grandma’s house, her boyfriend’s handgun tucked inside her handbag.
When the car expires alongside the freeway, Vanessa catches a ride with buttoned down youth counselor Bob Wolverton (Kiefer Sutherland), whose name none-too-subtly reveals his role in this fractured fairy tale. Vanessa soon discovers that Wolverton is the “I-5 Killer” who has been slaughtering young prostitutes along the Pacific coastal highway and then violating their corpses. What’s worse, Bob clearly intends her to be his next victim. Amazingly, all of this happens within the first twenty minutes. What follows is a brutally honest send-up of our most febrile societal obsessions that pauses from time to time to fuck with viewers’ preconceived notions about welfare, homelessness, addiction, race relations, and other grist for the opinion mill.
Writer/director Bright’s serpentine script slithers its way through an asphalt jungle of genres, recalling such disparate productions as Jonathan Kaplan’s Over The Edge (1979) and satirical soulmate Female Trouble (1975), still John Waters’ most heartfelt production. As the comparison suggests, Freeway would be equally at home in the arthouse or the grind house (Bright calls it "artsploitation"). A brief detour into women-in-prison territory serves not only as homage to the drive-in trash culture that helped spawn Freeway but also as an indictment against the treatment of youthful offenders in a decrepit and uneven criminal justice system.
As the hard-as-nails Vanessa, Reese Witherspoon leaves no doubt that her subsequent ascension to the A-list was based on sheer talent. She’s terrific in a raunchy performance that must be unknown to the critics who have clucked loudly over her “against type” role in Jean-Marc Vallée’s recent Wild (2014). As the Ted Bundy-esque killer, Kiefer Sutherland will be a surprise to those who primarily know him as fascist idol Jack Bauer. His chameleonic transformation from sympathetic counselor to sadistic pervert is both creepy and hilarious. The two leads are supported by an able-bodied cast of character actors, among them Dan Hedaya from Blood Simple (1984) and Conchata Ferrell as the carjacked caseworker. The casting of Brooke Shields as Wolverton’s stumped spouse displays cinematic craftiness at its most arch.
Freeway should have been the start of an established filmmaking career for Bright, but was instead the beginning of its end. Disgusted with clueless post-production tampering on this film and his last realized project, Tiptoes (2003), which he subsequently disowned, Bright bailed on a sterile corporate culture that couldn’t tolerate his bold vision for a life in Mexico. A high-school chum of musician Danny Elfman, Bright received his first film credit as co-scripter of (and, as “Toshiro Baloney,” acted in) the bizarre Fleischer-Brothers-meet-Eraserhead cult clas-sick Forbidden Zone (1980), directed by Danny’s brother Richard. Bright’s last film appearance was in the “making of” documentary A Look Into The Forbidden Zone (2004), included as a bonus in the 2012 Arrow Video Blu-ray release of that feature.
Lionsgate’s fine 2007 DVD of Freeway, with lame, generic action-movie packaging but a hilarious commentary by Bright, is out-of-print, though it can still be found online. In a better world we’d see the release of a Blu-ray featuring Bright’s original cut, which, aside from several Hollywood screenings, has never been available in any format.
Writer/director Bright’s serpentine script slithers its way through an asphalt jungle of genres, recalling such disparate productions as Jonathan Kaplan’s Over The Edge (1979) and satirical soulmate Female Trouble (1975), still John Waters’ most heartfelt production. As the comparison suggests, Freeway would be equally at home in the arthouse or the grind house (Bright calls it "artsploitation"). A brief detour into women-in-prison territory serves not only as homage to the drive-in trash culture that helped spawn Freeway but also as an indictment against the treatment of youthful offenders in a decrepit and uneven criminal justice system.
As the hard-as-nails Vanessa, Reese Witherspoon leaves no doubt that her subsequent ascension to the A-list was based on sheer talent. She’s terrific in a raunchy performance that must be unknown to the critics who have clucked loudly over her “against type” role in Jean-Marc Vallée’s recent Wild (2014). As the Ted Bundy-esque killer, Kiefer Sutherland will be a surprise to those who primarily know him as fascist idol Jack Bauer. His chameleonic transformation from sympathetic counselor to sadistic pervert is both creepy and hilarious. The two leads are supported by an able-bodied cast of character actors, among them Dan Hedaya from Blood Simple (1984) and Conchata Ferrell as the carjacked caseworker. The casting of Brooke Shields as Wolverton’s stumped spouse displays cinematic craftiness at its most arch.
Freeway should have been the start of an established filmmaking career for Bright, but was instead the beginning of its end. Disgusted with clueless post-production tampering on this film and his last realized project, Tiptoes (2003), which he subsequently disowned, Bright bailed on a sterile corporate culture that couldn’t tolerate his bold vision for a life in Mexico. A high-school chum of musician Danny Elfman, Bright received his first film credit as co-scripter of (and, as “Toshiro Baloney,” acted in) the bizarre Fleischer-Brothers-meet-Eraserhead cult clas-sick Forbidden Zone (1980), directed by Danny’s brother Richard. Bright’s last film appearance was in the “making of” documentary A Look Into The Forbidden Zone (2004), included as a bonus in the 2012 Arrow Video Blu-ray release of that feature.
Lionsgate’s fine 2007 DVD of Freeway, with lame, generic action-movie packaging but a hilarious commentary by Bright, is out-of-print, though it can still be found online. In a better world we’d see the release of a Blu-ray featuring Bright’s original cut, which, aside from several Hollywood screenings, has never been available in any format.