After 'Guncrazy', 'Freeway' makes for an unexpected Matthew Bright double feature, I didn't realize before hand that both films had the same director. Bright, whose work I was not previously familiar with, has some definite recurring themes and motifs for his films, which have a B movie quality, but a B movie helmed by a very good director, like an Edward G. Ulmer B movie.
While 'Guncrazy' was a pretty straight forward love story/ crime drama, 'Freeway' is more of a black comedy. A 20 year old Reese Witherspoon plays 16 year old Vanessa, a Texas native now living in California. Her mother and stepfather have been arrested again so she decides to make a trip to the home of a grandmother she's never meet, the hope being she will take her in so as to avoid ending up in the foster system again. On the way to grandma's her care breaks down and she is picked up by a seemingly very nice youth councilor named Bob Wolverton played by Kefier Southerland. This movie is a sort of revisionist take on the story of Little Red Riddinghood, which should give you a good sense of where it is going.
Like 'Guncrazy' the dynamic between the two central characters is what magnitizes the flick. Southerland as he alternates between a nice guy with a bit of a limp, to a psychopath whose hard to kill. Witherspoon's Vanessa is book dumb, barley literate, but street smart and pugnacious, these two are worthy advisories. The film also sports a plethora of interesting minor characters played by a host of talented actors including Dan Hedaya at his most restrained and Brittany Murphy at her most odd, as well as Bokeem Woodbine, Conchita Ferrell, Amanda Plumber and Brooke Shields. There is a kind of playfully surreal rawness here, which may be a new experience. Not for everyone but I was rather impressed with it. ***
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