1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 29: Freeway
In Ecuador, the bus companies pamper their clients. A steward will walk down the aisle and give each traveler a packet of crackers and a cupful of lukewarm sodapop. Then he’ll put on a movie. If it’s a long trip, he’ll put on two or three movies.
These are the most popular genres:
On one trip, the steward began to play Grease. It took all of five minutes for the passengers to start clamoring for him to turn off that porquería (or maybe they used a stronger word). Which he did.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Freeway is hands-down the best movie I’ve seen on the bus. The other passengers with whom I saw it loved it, too. They laughed. They cheered. The only passenger who disliked Freeway was my mother.
I can understand why she didn’t like it. Some viewers would be put off by the disturbing illustrations that go along with the opening titles (they show a hungry wolf chasing after teenaged girls). Distasteful, also, are the scenes of sexual molestation, prostitution, drug use, pornography use, prison violence, and murder; the constant swearing; and the lurid, simplistic plot, lifted from the story of Little Red Riding Hood. All of this is played for laughs.
Somehow, the passengers on the route between Santo Domingo and Quito weren’t offended by those things.
Freeway satirizes people’s fascination with depravity. To accomplish this, it goes all-in on the depravity. It stacks the deck against the heroine, laughing at her; then it laughs along with her as she turns the tables against her privileged enemies, exposing their hypocrisy.
As I recall, the bus riders laughed hardest at a scene near the end. The heroine poses as a hooker and then threatens her john with a gun, forcing him to disrobe and locking him in the trunk of his car.
There are funnier scenes. Some of them are funny at the heroine’s expense. But I think the bus riders got the movie’s main point.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) is a teenager of low social standing. Very, very low. She can barely read. Her mother is a prostitute. Her stepfather is a drug addict. Certain plot developments force Vanessa to seek out her grandmother, who lives in a trailer park in Stockton, California (Vanessa lives in San Diego). Vanessa’s car breaks down as soon as she drives onto the freeway. Another motorist (Kiefer Sutherland) pulls over. He drives a black SUV, and his name is Bob Wolverton. Vanessa accepts his offer of a ride. Unfortunately, Bob turns out to be a bad samaritan: he is the “I-5 Killer,” an abductor and murderer of low-class young women.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Some versions of the Red Riding Hood tale include a woodsman who may or may not end up saving Red Riding Hood from the wolf. In Freeway, the woodsman is a police detective (Dan Hedaya). He’s the only adult who treats Vanessa with respect. The other adults are oppressive authority figures. Bob Wolverton works as a counselor for troubled youth; he gets his kicks stroking the wounds of children’s souls. His wife is a snobbish harpy (a “Karen” in today’s vernacular). Vanessa also meets prison guards who’d as soon torture as rehabilitate her; family members unconcerned about her wellbeing; and social workers and police who’d wash their hands of her as quickly as possible. The detective’s partner treats her as contemptuously as Bob Wolverton does. The parallel is clear: the others may not be serial killers, but they’re murdering Vanessa in other ways.
Or they would murder her if she weren’t such a badass. Reese Witherspoon exults in the role, gleefully hurtling her enemies’ venom back at them:
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Of course, there’s no holding Bob Wolverton in high regard, but at least Kiefer Sutherland plays him with gusto. He’s respectable-looking, with a sudden leer that recalls the devil (his father, Donald Sutherland, also grinned devilishly in National Lampoon’s Animal House).
There are other fine actors I haven’t named. They must have been attracted to the script of what’s essentially a B-movie. In its acting and writing, Freeway oozes bravado; otherwise, it’s a rather plain production. If anything, that plainness works in its favor.
Tone-wise, the movie isn’t far from the stories of Flannery O’Connor – especially, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Revelation” (with its parade of freaks and lowlifes on their way to heaven). See also James Thurber’s “The Little Girl and the Wolf.”
This is one of my favorite movies of the year.
P.S. Roger Ebert, in his admiring review, offers this statement of “Ebert’s Law”: A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it. This is a helpful principle to keep in mind when judging a movie like Freeway. Unfortunately, the review gives away a lot of details, so you might postpone reading it until after you’ve seen the movie.
These are the most popular genres:
- Vietnam POW rescue movies
- martial arts movies (featuring Jackie Chan, if I’m lucky)
- horror movies (Gremlins and My Bloody Valentine are the best ones I’ve seen on the bus)
- cop movies
- gangster movies
On one trip, the steward began to play Grease. It took all of five minutes for the passengers to start clamoring for him to turn off that porquería (or maybe they used a stronger word). Which he did.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Freeway is hands-down the best movie I’ve seen on the bus. The other passengers with whom I saw it loved it, too. They laughed. They cheered. The only passenger who disliked Freeway was my mother.
I can understand why she didn’t like it. Some viewers would be put off by the disturbing illustrations that go along with the opening titles (they show a hungry wolf chasing after teenaged girls). Distasteful, also, are the scenes of sexual molestation, prostitution, drug use, pornography use, prison violence, and murder; the constant swearing; and the lurid, simplistic plot, lifted from the story of Little Red Riding Hood. All of this is played for laughs.
Somehow, the passengers on the route between Santo Domingo and Quito weren’t offended by those things.
Freeway satirizes people’s fascination with depravity. To accomplish this, it goes all-in on the depravity. It stacks the deck against the heroine, laughing at her; then it laughs along with her as she turns the tables against her privileged enemies, exposing their hypocrisy.
As I recall, the bus riders laughed hardest at a scene near the end. The heroine poses as a hooker and then threatens her john with a gun, forcing him to disrobe and locking him in the trunk of his car.
There are funnier scenes. Some of them are funny at the heroine’s expense. But I think the bus riders got the movie’s main point.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) is a teenager of low social standing. Very, very low. She can barely read. Her mother is a prostitute. Her stepfather is a drug addict. Certain plot developments force Vanessa to seek out her grandmother, who lives in a trailer park in Stockton, California (Vanessa lives in San Diego). Vanessa’s car breaks down as soon as she drives onto the freeway. Another motorist (Kiefer Sutherland) pulls over. He drives a black SUV, and his name is Bob Wolverton. Vanessa accepts his offer of a ride. Unfortunately, Bob turns out to be a bad samaritan: he is the “I-5 Killer,” an abductor and murderer of low-class young women.
VANESSA: Are you the guy who’s been killing all them girls on the freeway, Bob? [Bob chuckles.] Why are you killing all them girls, Bob?Vanessa must survive her initial encounter with the wolf, make her way to her grandmother’s house, and confront the wolf one last time.
BOB: ’Cause I have absolutely reached my ----ing limit with people like you, Vanessa.
VANESSA: What kinda people am I supposed to be?
BOB: The alcoholics, the drug addicts, the fathers who ---- their daughters, the drug-addicted ----------ing whores with their bastard ----ing offspring.
VANESSA: Hey, I ain’t no trick baby!
BOB: We call them garbage people, and I assure you, you are one of them.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Some versions of the Red Riding Hood tale include a woodsman who may or may not end up saving Red Riding Hood from the wolf. In Freeway, the woodsman is a police detective (Dan Hedaya). He’s the only adult who treats Vanessa with respect. The other adults are oppressive authority figures. Bob Wolverton works as a counselor for troubled youth; he gets his kicks stroking the wounds of children’s souls. His wife is a snobbish harpy (a “Karen” in today’s vernacular). Vanessa also meets prison guards who’d as soon torture as rehabilitate her; family members unconcerned about her wellbeing; and social workers and police who’d wash their hands of her as quickly as possible. The detective’s partner treats her as contemptuously as Bob Wolverton does. The parallel is clear: the others may not be serial killers, but they’re murdering Vanessa in other ways.
Or they would murder her if she weren’t such a badass. Reese Witherspoon exults in the role, gleefully hurtling her enemies’ venom back at them:
Holy ----! Look who got beaten with the ugly stick! Is that you, Bob? I can’t believe such a teeny weeny little gun made such a big mess out of someone! You are so ugly, Bob! And, hey, I heard you have one of those big ---- bags that’s like attached to where the ---- comes out the side. You’re just a big old ---- bag, ain’t you, Bob! You just think of me every time you empty that ----------ing thing, ----------er! …
Them’s some big ugly ----in’ teeth you got, Bob!But she also shows flashes of pious compassion:
This is a crucial question, Bob. Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and take him for your personal savior?And of remorse:
Oh God. God, that was so ----in’ bad.The detective notes that all of Vanessa’s peers hold her in high regard. By the end of the movie, so should the viewer.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Of course, there’s no holding Bob Wolverton in high regard, but at least Kiefer Sutherland plays him with gusto. He’s respectable-looking, with a sudden leer that recalls the devil (his father, Donald Sutherland, also grinned devilishly in National Lampoon’s Animal House).
There are other fine actors I haven’t named. They must have been attracted to the script of what’s essentially a B-movie. In its acting and writing, Freeway oozes bravado; otherwise, it’s a rather plain production. If anything, that plainness works in its favor.
Tone-wise, the movie isn’t far from the stories of Flannery O’Connor – especially, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” and “Revelation” (with its parade of freaks and lowlifes on their way to heaven). See also James Thurber’s “The Little Girl and the Wolf.”
This is one of my favorite movies of the year.
P.S. Roger Ebert, in his admiring review, offers this statement of “Ebert’s Law”: A movie is not about what it is about. It is about how it is about it. This is a helpful principle to keep in mind when judging a movie like Freeway. Unfortunately, the review gives away a lot of details, so you might postpone reading it until after you’ve seen the movie.