Grungy, horrific but also terribly righteous and exquisitely funny to boot, this film blows away the cobwebs of so many boring genre flicks. It's far from subtle in its addressing of raw social issues like abuse, racism, youth & justice and in doing so through its characterisations and ripe dialogue risks feeling a little raw in a 21st century context, but it's from a rougher time. One forgets how tawdry the nineties really were, epitomised by the urban LA environ referenced here. In fact although on one level it's a neat moral fable with sex and violence kind of dumped in, it goes much further and deeper than first appearances with the wit of the writing and the skills of the two leads. Freeway ends up commenting on the moral environment of Red Riding Hood, Wolf if you like, in reality the hostile society the girl is persecuted by. I dare say it's a femminst movie albeit one that traces a delicate line, dancing with the sexploitation culture - it sets out to first court and so draw interest, and then to cheerfully crush. You soon much of the plot is really shocking and far from predicable, and the usual victim/assailant roles can't be relied upon. Light of foot and viscerally profound, this is in a superlative class - there's few movies that document, challenge, amuse and horrify all pretty much at the same time.

So there's me thinking I'm taking a break from my obscure exploitation movies and I find myself sat before this beauty. Made in 1996, which doesn't seem so long ago, but it's before Keiffer Sutherland settled into the 24 TV series and before Reese Witherspoon had even made Election, and while they have both gone on to much bigger if not better things, director Bright has not. Well, I don't know what possessed him to imagine he was going to make too many Hollywood friends with this mighty chunk of wild and anti-establishment, two fingered spout of anger, but it is enormous fun to watch. Also, as with so much exploitative cinema it seems to tell far more truths than your average 'serious' movie. Sutherland is effective but Witherspoon amazing, I had forgotten how tremendous she could be. Varied, violent, funny and furious, this is worth a watch anytime.

Reese Witherspoon made this riveting thriller before she became everybody's favorite sweetheart. The "Legally Blond" star plays a foul-mouthed, illiterate teenager named Vanessa Lutz who hitches a ride with an older man after her car breaks down on the freeway. He offers her a lift as far as Los Angeles and even takes her out to dinner. Later, he turns out to be a notorious California highway serial killer who has been making headlines. Kiefer Sutherland is thoroughly obnoxious as Bob Wolverton, a bespectacled boys counselor who gets more than he bargained for after he picks up Vanessa, cuts off her ponytail, and threatens to rape her corpse. She whips out a small, Spanish-made automatic pistol that her boyfriend, Chopper (Bokeem Woodbine) gave her moments before he died in a drive-by shooting. Vanessa lands in jail but she does not stick long before she breaks out and joins a group of Hispanic girls who pull tricks on the side. All Vanessa wants to do is go to Stockton, California, so she can live with her grandmother rather than wind up in another horrible foster home.The dialogue brims with profanity and the subject matter is very unsavory. Witherspoon gives a dynamic performance. If you think that Witherspoon is cast against the grain, wait until you see a grown-up Brooke Shields who plays the wife of the serial killer."Freeway" is an unforgettable dark comedy that doesn't pull any of its punches!

Only in the 1990's that you had a enormous stream of twisted, violent, dark films with awkward funny moments, and writers and directors got away with it, although some of them haven't lived up to higher expectations with the noble exception of Coen brothers. Far away from being intelligent like Coen's films "Freeway" comes to amaze us with bringing the story of Little Red Riding Hood in a different environment with many violent and funny situations.Reese Witherspoon plays the troubled Vanessa, a girl whose mother and stepfather were arrested, and she doesn't want to go to foster care or similar, deciding instead on going to her grandmother's house, the only place she can go. This Little Red Riding Hood won't bring cookies to grandma, and she's not so innocent like the old tale, here's a girl with lots of problems and lots of anger too after meeting her Big Bad Wolf, Bob a friendly psycho killer (Kiefer Sutherland) who picks her up on the road after her car broke. What comes after it's a hilarious and twisted story about two figures that don't know how to get rid of each other, in a plot that involves murders, juvenile prison for girls, a funny trial, punchlines in the wrong time to make us laugh all the time.It's not for everyone's tastes, it's certainly that not everyone will find the story funny as a comedy instead of a ridiculous way as the plot might suggest. It's full of surprises, very uncompromising and has some interesting performance from Witherspoon as the talking/smart/violent/Christian girl who manages to survive the whole ride meeting creepy characters on the way, and a nice performance from Kiefer playing the friendly guy who ends up being a killer trapped in his own evilness, after the girl shoot him several times, and this guy for some reason doesn't die but keeps living a painful life after. The scenes with both in the car, talking about her problems and he's playing the good listener was very good, and sometimes I wish that the whole movie would be focused on them doing this because it was interesting so these two change to each other the way they act, talk and all, but then we would have a dramatic feature, something that this film is not. How come one stumble upon this film? Simple! Of 5 films credited on IMDb you'll see in 4 random titles the suggestion for this film, and I gotta recognize that the promotion is a little bit over-the-top but it made me curious to watch it, and it turned out to be a great film. One year in a crusade after "Freeway" I finally watched, enjoyed, it got me laughing and surprised despite a few clichés here and there. If you can see humor in bizarre situations that in ordinary life wouldn't be funny then this film is for you! 10/10