- published: 25 Feb 2012
- views: 58715
Freeway is a 1996 crime film written and directed by Matthew Bright, starring Kiefer Sutherland, Reese Witherspoon and Brooke Shields.
The plot of this film resembles the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood.
Vanessa Lutz is a poor, illiterate teenage girl living in the slums of Los Angeles. After her mother, Ramona, is arrested in a prostitution sting, she runs away with a stolen car from her social worker guardian to stay with her grandmother in Stockton. Along the way, Vanessa stops to see her boyfriend and classmate Chopper Wood, a local gang member to tell him about her excursion and he gives her a gun to sell upon arriving at her destination. Minutes after Vanessa leaves Chopper, he is killed in a drive-by shooting by rival gang members. A little later, Bob Wolverton, a serial killer and rapist known as "the I-5 killer", picks her up after her car breaks down, and promises to take her to her grandmother's house.
Over the long drive, Bob manipulates Vanessa into confessing to him the details of her painfully dysfunctional life, including a prostitute mother and a sexually abusive stepfather. At one point, Vanessa shows Bob a photo she keeps in her wallet of her biological father. (The photo used is actually a picture of mass murderer Richard Speck.) That evening, Bob eventually reveals his true nature and tries to kill Vanessa when she refuses to give in to him. The tables are turned, however, as Vanessa eventually pulls out her gun and shoots him several times before escaping.