Freeway (1996) * * *

Directed by:  Matthew Bright

Starring:  Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Brooke Shields, Dan Hedaya, Brittany Murphy, Wolfgang Bodison

Freeway is a disturbing update on Little Red Riding Hood, as if we needed an update on Little Red Riding Hood.    The Riding Hood is Vanessa (Witherspoon), an illiterate teen from a broken home in which her mother is a prostitute and her father abuses her.   She has been in trouble with the law and placed in the foster care system which has done nothing to help her.   She is even seen carrying a red basket as she steals her foster mother's car.   She comes across the Big Bad Wolf, conveniently named Bob Wolverton (Sutherland), a psychopath who unbeknownst to Vanessa is the elusive I-5 killer.    He picks her up after her car breaks down on Interstate 5, treats her to dinner, gets her to open up about her horrible past, and then tries to assault and murder her.   Where was she heading to?  To her grandmother's house in Stockton, of course.

While the movie moves uneasily between satire and plain, old gruesome violence, I can't say I was bored.    Witherspoon, in one of her earlier film roles, is a mouthy firecracker so wounded by life she can hardly feel anything but rage.    After Bob attempts to kill her in a remote area off of the freeway, Vanessa turns the tables and shoots him in some very bad places while leaving him for dead.  "I hope you don't hold this against me and hate me more than you already do," she tells Jesus in a prayer.    It is hard not to disagree with her assessment that the Almighty may have it in for her.

Bob is not killed, but is horribly disfigured and must use a colostomy bag.   His naïve, unsuspecting wife (Shields) paints her husband as the victim, and Vanessa can't get the police to believe her story.   Not that she tells it in the most pleasant or understandable way.   Vanessa awaits trial as an adult for attempted murder, while Bob and his wife go on television advocating victim's rights.    Shields is quite effective as the clueless wife.  You just want to reach through the screen and shake her until she learns to at least question why her husband was in the company of a runaway teenager.

Sutherland has played these types of killers before, and is well suited for it because of his otherwise normal appearance and too calm demeanor.   Watch how he is able to penetrate Vanessa's exterior posing as a caring psychologist.   I assume he actually is a thriving one based on the size of his house.    Of course, the first encounter between Vanessa and Bob won't be the last, and the ending is a bit too much Little Red Riding Hoodish for my taste, while the violence is mainly gratuitous.   But, then there is the thoughtful side of Freeway, one which examines the futility of the justice system which is automatically inclined to disbelieve Vanessa because of her troubled past and her nasty demeanor.   Surely, Bob must be innocent because he has a respectable job and lives in a posh house, right?    And surely Vanessa is the perpetrator because she doesn't have a respectable job or live in posh house, right?   When the smoke clears, even the cops know the answer to that question.