Freeway

'Freeway' is a film I'd long known about but had never watched. Upon seeing it, I was pretty floored. Like, enough so that I watched it again immediately afterwards. Anyway, if you know already, you know, but in case not, its a seriously messed up retelling of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' done as a burnt-out, SoCal exploitation movie that starring Reese Witherspoon (who gives one of those jaw-dropping performances that only happen occasionally). It's got an insane cast that counts Amanda Plummer, Brooke Shields, Dan Hedaya, Tara Subkoff, Brittany Murphy, and Guillermo Díaz among the many smaller parts. And it effectively co-stars Kiefer Sutherland as the actor who spends the most screen time with Witherspoon (and mostly in a car)--if you are mostly (or even more recently) familiar with his recent work, this will more than remind you of his capabilities. It's wild for a first-time director to have had the kind of pull to get this cast, though he credits at least some of it to Oliver Stone's interest in the script. Anyway, it is definitely exploitation though, interestingly, it's not (particularly) gory and the nudity is minimal, though language-wise...well, let's just say it's gonna be a problem for sensitive types (and possibly even not-sensitive types). Structured in four (loosely speaking) sections, the beginning is certainly disconcerting, the second part is really pretty intense, the third funny (it in that 'I can't quite believe what I'm seeing' sort of way), and the end is seriously bonkers. Depending on your tolerance, it's a real head melter. Note that I'm really not trying to oversell it here, just know what you are getting--it is not a 'black comedy' like Witherspoon's 'Election' (which came out three years later), it's something much more fucked up than that, but it's got just as firecracker of a performance from its star.