Freeway – who’s afraid of the big bad Wolverton?
Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) is young student who has some serious family issues. Her step father, Larry (Michael Weiss) is an unemployed junkie who molests her and her mother, Ramona (Amanda Plummer) is a prostitute. The last straw for Vanessa is when the police arrest both her parents, her mum for soliciting and her dad for breaking the terms of his parole. Not wanting to go back to a children shelter she gets away from her welfare worker by cuffing her to a bed and taking her car so she can travel to her grandmothers house packing a basket (with gun), but little else.
Low and behold the car breaks down and our friendly neighbourhood serial killer Bob Wolverton (although she is obviously unaware of that at the time) comes along to give her a hand. He offers to give her a ride to Los Angeles declaring that the car is beyond help, and she accepts.
Bob (Keifer Sutherland) is a counsellor and encourages Vanessa to tell him her problems which she freely does although the conversation takes on darker tones and the penny finally drops for Vanessa, she realises that Bob is the I-5 killer who she has heard about in the news. She turns the tables on Bob by shooting him and manages to get away. Bob survives and Vanessa is arrested for attempted murder and is put on trial. Will Vanessa be able to convince the cops that Bob is the I-5 killer, or will she be going down for a long time?
Bearing in mind that I thought that this was a serious film I was extremely disappointed when the movie provided me with a whole new experience when watching a film of this genre (or at least the genre I thought it was)...laughter. For me it was only after I had watched the main feature and then one of the extras did I find out that the film was in fact a dark comedy, at least that is how Oliver Stone, one of the executive producers, put it. It suddenly made sense because if this was a serious crime film, then this would have been one of the worst films ever made (not that it is a good comedy). After hearing this on the extra I looked the film up on IMDB where low and behold we have comedy as the first genre listing. That will teach me for not reading up on the film first!
The movie is an allegory to Little Red Riding Hood, this is plainly obvious by the fact that there are “cartoon” sequences at the beginning depicting that fairy tale, but there are other clues, such as Vanessa’s red jacket, her basket and the fact she is off to see Grandma.
Reese Witherspoon is the main star of the film, her character isn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but she is streetwise and she can look after herself which is a big plus if your life was anything like hers. There were certain parts of the film where I thought she was doing well as the illiterate Vanessa, and was really bringing the character to life and there was other time’s when I was shaking my head in disbelief, such as not being able to read an extremely simple sentence off of the blackboard right at the beginning of the film but them knowing what a hypocrite is when she is speaking to Bob.
Keifer as the big bad (Bob) Wolverton does come across well as a slimy serial killer, he switches form the affable good Samaritan to the evil I-5 killer quite well and we are pretty much cheering Vanessa on when she shoots him. But there is no way on this planet that anyone would have survived getting shot the way he did, and when he is in court after the attack he looks ridiculous, which isn’t helped by Vanessa hurling insults and laughing at him. But remember I was thinking that this was a serious film and that I was not expecting these comedic moments.
The other characters are not that great. Brook Shields is in it as Bobs wife, she is completely unmemorable. And Brittany Murphy also has a small role as Rhonda who reminded me of a crazed, Lesbian and slightly simple, female version of Edward scissor hands without the blade fingers. I most definitely had a confused expression on my face when she first showed up as there really was little point to her character.
I found myself questioning things all throughout the running time, but I have to say that it is the ending which is by far and away the worst ending I’ve seen. I obviously cannot describe it as it would be classed as a spoiler but I found myself laughing, out loud. Which after finding out it was a comedy of sort I guess was the intended response, but it all felt just so ridiculous.
So should I recommend this? I have to give it a no, there are so many better ways to waste almost 100 minutes of your life, leave it be.
Extras:
None