Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Heres_Johny 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.

Blake Peterson Imagine Little Red Riding Hood, except the story is set in the ghettos of 1996, Little Red Riding Hood is a dirty blonde teenage punk with anger issues, the mother is a crack-headed prostitute, the grandma is a trailer park low-life, and, oh yeah, the Big Bad Wolf isn't a wolf at all: he's a serial murderer, or, as the news so fondly labels him, the I-5 killer. If you live in 1996, are a prostitute, and are hitchhiking, scurry away, because your life may be in danger. But if none of these characteristics fit your billing, then there is nothing that should be stopping you from watching Freeway, unless you are a prude to the tenth power.When it comes to movies as unhinged as Freeway, my love for all things absurd and trashy rises to unseemly biased levels. There is something about low-budgets and Tarantino-esque exchanges that touch me in the way that most films can hardly muster. Few can brag about having an ever- present crisis of tawdry characters getting into some seriously bad situations, and even fewer can say that they've devised a film so dauntless in its over-the-top personality that it nearly laughs itself to death.Witherspoon, who is best when playing against type, portrays Vanessa, a 16-year old delinquent who is anchored to the ground by her prostitute mother (Amanda Plummer) and drugged-out stepfather. In school, reading a sentence like "The cat drinks milk" is a feat of Shakespearian hardship, as Vanessa, more enticed to be called a badass in the slums of Los Angeles, is devastatingly illiterate. But anyone who lacks school smarts and lives on the bad streets of town is bound to be a little more unhinged in their fight in the rat race, after all.After her parents are arrested, Vanessa decides that she's done with the government, skips foster care, and heads towards the home of her grandmother, who she never has actually met. Only a few miles into the journey does her car breakdown — lucky for her, a clean-cut stranger (Kiefer Sutherland) comes to the rescue, introducing himself as Bob Wolverton, a high school counselor. Vanessa immediately confides in her makeshift chauffeur about all her weighty problems; but after traveling for a few hours, Wolverton's true nature is bitterly revealed. He turns out to be one of those sadistic creeps you read about in the paper — some may know him as the I-5 Killer. Vanessa isn't about to become some helpless next victim, however: she is, fortunately, packing a pistol. She shoots her would-be murderer several times, takes all his money, and leaves him for dead. But chances are, when you leave someone for dead, they tend to not actually die, and, as the film would like to remind us over and over, Vanessa should have shot Wolverton just one more time.The saga of Freeway is as combative and unpredictable as the tabloid coverage of a true-crime cat-and-mouse game, its participants so grandiosely sinful in their shabby hysteria that, by the end, when Vanessa is completely exhausted, mascara streaming down her face like a jilted prom queen, her asking for a cigarette is as riotous as Lucy and Ethel trying as hard as they can to get the chocolates from overloading on the conveyor belt.Freeway is a comedy, but it's not a comedy for the Anchorman generation and maybe not even for the ones who thought The Carol Burnett Show was a shining jewel in television. It's mean-spirited enough to drive Regina George away, but even the meanest of people can be hilariously mean. The film is a melodramatically contorted white-trash vision; not laughing would almost be rude. Matthew Bright, as cynical and clever as he is, has accomplished the rare act of making a B-movie thriller brilliant in its tackiness. Witherspoon and Sutherland have never been so enthralling. Read more reviews at petersonreviews.com

captaintrps This movie is horrible. I spent the majority of the time holding down the fast forward button on my remote.Reese W. does well despite the horrible film that this is. Keifer S. should just stay retired or go in hiding or wherever he was before this came out.Reese has to regret doing this film.Very predictable, with no plot or storyline that you're average movie buff couldn't come up with. I don't see where this has anything to do with the little red riding hood story. They forced that association onto this film.This is not worth watching at all. The weekend opening gross tells the story. Don't waste your time, or spoil your thoughts that Reese W. is fun to watch on film.

down-emily I can't believe this is the score for this movie. It's sheer brilliance. This film is a masterpiece thriller, full of amazing performances. For its time, it is a HUGE eye-opener and an outstanding attempt to recreate the fairy tale in a suburban fashion. It is simply riveting and very satisfying in terms of plot, action and character. I have never seen Reese Witherspoon kick so much ass ever. I don't understand why she didn't get any Oscar buzz for this one. This performance completely tops her part in Walk the Line. She is more than amazing in this film. You really don't wanna mess with her. She is capable of almost anything after what's been done to her. We still sympathize with her though because she's still compassionate and cares for what is right. She has a set of principles that she won't let anyone tread on. Being more of a Punisher, she is that strong heroine that uses her sense of justice to subdue those who wrong her, but at the same time, she's all about instinct and guts, she isn't your Lara Croft or your fancy Black Widow. She just acts on pure instinct of what is right and she understands that most of the time, reality is screwed up and doesn't care for what is wrong or right. I was left speechless at the sheer simplicity with which she conveys so much pain, anger and most of all strength. At the same time, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what she could do. At the beginning of the movie, you can't picture her as that tough. But by the end of it, even those cops were smiling at her, thinking 'Okay, let's never upset this one or we'll get our asses whooped!' As for Sutherland, wow, he can play a real creep when he wants to and be good at it too. His facial expressions and his gestures tell everything you need to know about him as a killer. And at the beginning, when he's playing the good guy, he's so believable you know right away he's sure to be off his bonkers. I have to admit though, he's a tad underplayed. There's not enough focus on him. Also, I was expecting a little bit more from him, but Reese made up for whatever was missing. As a side note, Brittany Murphy is another nice touch to this movie. I have seen this kind of performance before, but I think she made it personal, as in she made you believe that she was the one going through all of that. I just wish she could have played more parts like this one, but I guess we'll never see that happening now...I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who wants to see Reese Witherspoon show her acting props. I really miss this side of her. Now she's more into sweet, sugary indie movies which aren't all bad, they just don't give her much to work with and waste some of her huge potential. Oh and that accent of hers needs to take front stage right now, it's adorable! Go watch this movie and you won't regret it!