HIGHWAY

US, 2002, 97 minutes. Colour.
Jared Leto, Jake Gyllenhaal, Selma Blair, John C. Mc Ginley, Jeremy Piven, Frances Sternhagen, M.C. Gainey.
Directed by James Cox.

Highway is a bizarre film. It would appeal to audiences, younger, wanting some eccentric comic touches with characters who are off-kilter.

The film has a Las Vegas setting, two friends, amoral in their approach to life, with dysfunctional families. Jared Leto portrays a young man who gets sexually involved, especially with a gangster’s wife, the gangster sending his toughs to pursue him, his fleeing to Seattle to avoid his feet being broken (ultimately he doesn’t). Jake Gyllenhaal, in an early role, is a more sympathetic young man, generally on drugs, and a drug dealer. He wants to go to Seattle to meet a girlfriend whom he has idealised (wrongly).

The film is a road story, the highway, with the two encountering strange characters, including Selma Blair as a prostitute from a Nevada ranch, where the two boys call in and inspect the girls. John C. Mc Ginley gives an over-the-top performance as a rock singer who wants to go to Seattle in memory of Kurt Cobain. Jeremy Pieven is the local drug dealer who gets a chance to act, overact, frenetically. One of the stops on the way is to see a young man who lives as an alligator, attracting tourists, his mother caring for him (Frances Sternhagen) – and who elicits the sympathy of the two who fight against a group of yahoos who are taunting the boy.

Eventually, the thugs catch up with the two young men, there is an amount of violence. There is also a glimpse of the grunge music scene in Seattle.

Younger audiences may relate to this kind of amoral world and character, out of curiosity or bizarre humour. Older audiences may find it difficult to endure with their low frustration tolerance for this kind of film.

It was written by Scott Rosenberg who has written some interesting films, Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead, Beautiful Girls, Con Air, High Fidelity, but some less good films including Gone in Sixty Seconds and Kangaroo Jack. It was directed by James Cox, who did much better with Wonderland, his portrait of the American porn star, John Holmes.