{"id":2595,"date":"2024-08-20T04:58:37","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T04:58:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2595"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:21:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:21:30","slug":"freeway-1988","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/20\/freeway-1988\/","title":{"rendered":"Freeway (1988)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Freeway<\/strong> (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, language, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Francis Delia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Francis Delia and Darrell Fetty\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Delia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Frank Byers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 2, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Darlanne Fluegel, James Russo, Billy Drago, Richard Belzer, Michael Callan, Joe Palese, Steve Franken, Brian Kaiser, Kenneth Tobey, Clint Howard.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $142,671 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Not to be confused with the 1996 Reese Witherspoon comedic crime drama of the same name, the 1988 action-thriller Freeway<\/strong> is solid B-movie entertainment from New World Pictures. What I\u2019m about to tell you will blow your mind. I never saw it in its entirety until yesterday. I didn\u2019t see it when it played at theaters because it never opened here in Philadelphia. I never spotted it on the shelf at either of my local video stores (that includes West Coast Video). Every time I tried to watch it on cable, I fell asleep (no reflection on the movie). I rented it in 2001 (Movies Unlimited) for an ex with a Billy Drago fixation and once again conked out about 20 minutes into it. I recently obtained a copy of this hard-to-find movie and resolved to watch it from start to finish. Mission accomplished!<\/p>\n

\u00a0The plot centers on Sunny Harper (Fluegel, To Live and Die in L.A.), a nurse obsessed with catching and stopping the freeway shooter (Drago, The Untouchables) who killed her husband a year earlier. He\u2019s still out there claiming victims along the 600 miles of the L.A. Freeway. The Bible-quoting psychopath usually phones a radio psychiatrist, Dr. Lazarus (Belzer, The Wrong Guys), before killing his latest victim. The lead detective on the case, Lt. Boyle (Callan, Cat Ballou), barely tolerates Sunny and her tenacity in ending the killer\u2019s reign of road terror. She\u2019s helped in her mission by Frank Quinn (Russo, Beverly Hills Cop), a mystery man who turns out to be an ex-cop-turned-bounty hunter with a tragic past.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Billy Drago is one of my favorite character actors and Freeway<\/strong> is one of his best roles. I don\u2019t want to give too much away about his character but he is one majorly disturbed dude. The movie is at its best when it focuses on his character and the car<\/em>nage. Belzer is also good as the talk radio host that the killer sees as his prophet. Russo exudes bad ass cool as the bounty hunter bent on catching his prey. Fluegel is okay in the lead. She\u2019s attractive and can act, but she doesn\u2019t really have much screen presence. The cast also includes Steve Franken (Hardly Working) as a lawyer being terrorized by the killer, Kenneth Tobey (The Thing from Another World) as a monsignor and Clint Howard (Evilspeak) as a dirty-minded car mechanic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Freeway<\/strong> has a reasonable amount of tension and a few cool action scenes. It tells a good story. The cinematography by Frank Byers is top-notch. Francis Delia, who directed two Starship music videos (Sara and We Built This City), makes great use of the L.A. Freeway locations. It takes on such an ominous feel at night. It\u2019s a good movie albeit unexceptional. It\u2019s one of New World\u2019s classy productions like Black Moon Rising and Wanted Dead or Alive. It\u2019s not as slick as those two movies but it\u2019s solidly entertaining and a good choice for a late night B-movie.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freeway (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 New World\/Action-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violence, language, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Francis Delia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Francis Delia and Darrell Fetty\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joe Delia\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Frank Byers\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: September 2, 1988 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Darlanne Fluegel, James Russo, Billy Drago, Richard Belzer, Michael Callan, Joe Palese, Steve Franken, Brian Kaiser, Kenneth Tobey, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Freeway-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3409,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions\/3409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}