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Freeway 2: Confessions of a Trick Baby by Sean Axmaker Directed
by Matthew Bright Starring
Natasha Lyonne, Written
by Matthew Bright Chances
are you haven’t heard of Freeway 2:
Confessions Of A Trick Baby, a dark, edgy, and often hilarious satire of the
social underbelly of inner-city crime and delinquency and the fantasy of escape
in the freedom of the rural frontier. It wasn’t made for video but it landed
there when it’s subject matter proved too touchy and the presentation too
seemingly irreverent for any distributor to touch. That’s not a new story for
writer/director Matthew Bright, whose genre bending efforts have all bypassed a
theatrical run. His sympathetic rewrite of the “violent lovers on the run” Guncrazy,
directed by Tamra Davis, wound up on cable where it earned a solid reputation as
unconventional fare. His directoral debut, Freeway,
opened in a handful of art houses, most of them after its video release. (His
script for the recent Modern Vampires
was pretty much destroyed by incompetent direction from Richard Elfman and after
tryout screenings hit video, but the less said about this cinematic abortion the
better.) Bright’s
neglect is a shame because whatever you think of his talents, he’s the most
interesting genre-bender of the modern crop of young directors. For Freeway
he turned the fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood” into a contemporary story
of a girl practically orphaned by a dysfunctional drug dealing mom. Escaping her
foster family existence, she searches for a loving environment from her
grandmother, meanwhile pursued by a big bad wolf: a serial rapist who just
happens to be a reform school counselor. Freeway
2: Confessions of a Trickbaby
plumbs similar territory while pushing the envelope even further, an
exploitation teen rebel drama turned post-modern take on “Hansel and Gretel.”
Natasha Lyonne (of The Slums of Beverly
Hills and American Pie) plays
Crystal, street name White Girl, a bulimic survivor of a parental neglect turned
petty criminal but blasted by the system. Lyonne, also the executive producer of
the film, is a genuine surprise. Slimmed down and punked out like a bleached
blonde Fairuza Balk, she shrugs off the easy-going, laid-back quality of past
performances to chomp down on the part with passion and verve. Neither repentant
nor on the road to self improvement, she plays the part as a street survivor
with attitude yet still genuine and feeling. Crystal is a hero by the very
nature of her energy and drive and take-no-shit philosophy. Dropped
into a so-called treatment facility, to cure her bulimia before she’s sent up
for her 25 year sentence, she and her cellmate Cyclona (Maria Celedonio) escape
and hit the road. It’s a tenuous partnership as clear-headed Crystal
continually deflects the advances of the lesbian serial killer Cyclona, who
likes to masturbate while talking to phantom lovers, and continually takes her
to task for the trail of corpses she leaves in her wake. Their goal is to cross
the border into Mexico, where Cyclona is convinced that the one person from her
past to ever show her any love, the mysterious Sister Gomez, will protect them
from harm. Gomez, as played by the generally explosive indie stalwart Vincent
Gallo (Buffalo 66, The
Funeral), speaks in hushed soothing tones, hunches in what seems perpetual
prayer, and shuffles in tiny steps while wrapped in a habit. Throwing off the
mannerisms and abrasive, argumentative personality that have defined his urban
characters to date, Gallo offers a genuinely creepy figure whose promise of
salvation sounds questionable at best. But she does serve a nice table and
starts stuffing Crystal (along with a parade of little kids who show up at the
table with big grins and empty stomachs), who soon finds the strength to fight
her bulimia. But Gomez has a secret that Crystal, in her darkest nightmares,
would never guess. It
takes over half the film for “Hansel and Gretel” to enter the equation
(which first surfaces in a truly twisted reinterpretation of the trail of
breadcrumbs), but Bright uses that time for a scathing take on the plight of
inner-city youths failed by their families, victims of a socially polluted
environment, and rejects of a system looking to punish rather than heal. All
that sounds pretentious, but Bright makes it a savage and darkly funny satire,
directed with energy to burn as he walks the knife’s edge of humor and horror.
In lock-up Crystal becomes the rebellious ringleader of a gang of anorexic
delinquents, indulging in midnight binge-and-purge feasts and leading a
ritualistic post-lunch vomit which Bright plays as a Hollywood musical number,
the girls hitting their marks as if choreographed to the beat of a Busby
Berkeley routine. (This is not a film to watch over a meal.) Crystal and Cyclona
become Bonnie and Clyde by way of The Odd Couple: “You’re a goddammed serial
killer,” Crystal screams at Cyclona when she catches her masturbating over the
dead bodies of two recent kills. The fragile Cyclona, bloody and sweaty but
emotionally fragile, shoots back, “I don’t need to be called names right
now.” Crystal’s hedonistic but oddly sincere and persistent lawyer (David
Alan Grier, who manages to make the sleaze almost likable) talks to cops while
another young, female client gives him a hand-job, neither of them breaking
their rhythm in front of the incredulous detectives. Bright
ups the ante in Mexico by delving into genuinely transgressive material. As in
the original Freeway he’s not
content to play the figures of horror as simple villains but genuine monsters of
the modern age and for this he touches on issues that are likely to get under
the skin of even the most stalwart viewers: child abuse, rape and torture,
kiddie porn, even cannibalism (none of this is shown or simulated, but the
evidence is fairly obvious). Bright finds nothing funny in this and suspends his
satire for the horror to sink in, but while there’s a certain catharsis in his
post-modern interpretation of a happy ending there’s also a dark humor and
cynical sting to it. Unfortunately, the climax has an obligatory nature to it, a
genre staple shoot-out that is neither effectively set-up nor dramatically
appropriate (Crystal has shown no facility with guns to this point, yet she
makes out like Chow Yun-fat), but it’s forgiven in the scenes that follow,
including a poignant reference to Of Mice
and Men, played in all seriousness. What
makes it all work is Bright’s respect for the characters: he has nothing but
sympathy for Crystal and Cyclona because he understands the nightmares that
drive them and the frustrated forces within in them made slaves to their past
horrors. When all is said and done Freeway
2: Confessions of a Trickbaby is a much more thoughtful and resonant film
than Oliver Stone’s pretentious, cynically callow Natural Born Killers, which is nothing more than cinematic bombast
passing as social commentary. Bright makes fewer claims (modesty is another of
this film’s virtues) and offers more insight, but never at the expense of the
entertainment. In that sense Bright has made one of the best genuine B movies to
hit screens in a long time, a film that delivers the visceral with verve, the
excessive with gusto, and the cinematic with style, and even offers a little
food for thought on the side. Don't have a DVD player? Didn't find what you are looking for? Look in the back issues of the store or in the extensive catalog of Amazon.COM by entering your search in the text box below: Contents | Features | Reviews
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