Interstate (2007)

Pretty Good

Good movie but grossly overrated

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

A Montreal DJ, following his girlfriend to Los Angeles, falls into a deadly relationship with a couple of female hitchhikers.Sounds like it could be fun, right?Well firstly the title music is horrible. It makes you want to run just to get a way from it. I had to FF thru the titles.Next, the acting is horrendous. And the film making is so shoddy that in one of the initial scenes (in the car) the girl has flies on her and no one re-shot the scene!!!OMG!Of course the car breaks down. Oy Vey. The one positive thing I can say is that the color is really nice. It pops. Other than that, the movie is horrible.It seems that it was marketed as a "film noir" but whoever came up with that bright idea doesn't know the first thing about film noir. DOA is film noir, Detour is film noir. This is garbage. The truth is, the writer stole a scene right out of Detour! Amazing.

The first half was pretty decent. Nice mood, setting, great shots along the New Mexico highway. Loved the bombastic, rundown pit-stops. This had real potential for some highly entertaining film noir. But alas, the last 20 or 30 minutes was mostly Edgar screaming and whining at his two female hitchhiker companions. He totally wimped out. He could have used force to extract himself from their company, but instead chose to snivel. He could have given them some cash (from Alan's wallet) and dropped them off almost anywhere. Instead, he allows them to call the shots, even though they have no weapons.I appreciated that it didn't turn into a sex-fest or a horror-fest. Unfortunately, an ear-grating shout-fest with uninteresting dialog is not much of an improvement. This could have been so much better. Lose the screaming and unbecoming wimpiness on Edgar's part, and I would have easily upgraded this to a 7 or higher. Also, stomping on some bags of heroin when there's an unstable, drugged-out girl pointing a gun at you doesn't quite seem like the smart thing to do. Good grief.

Oh joy. Here's another one of those movies that should never make it to DVD. Interstate is barely a half-step above a student's final project at an overly expensive film school. Only a few moments of filmmaking in the entire thing even flirt with professionalism. The rest of it is a collection of bad acting that couldn't get you a job as an extra on a telenovela, a story that plays out like someone came up with it when they were drunk, dialog that sounds like a schizophrenic talking to himself and editing that makes you wish you were a narcoleptic.Young lovers Edgar and Chloe (Shiloh Fernandez and Chase Mallen) are driving from Montreal to Los Angeles, where Chloe has an audition for a sitcom. Their car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and they only have enough money to guy a bus ticket for Chloe. As she luckily gets to ride out of this film, Edgar is left to hitchhike the rest of the way. He gets picked up by the oily, scraggly, squirrelly Alan (Walter Pena) and after they have a couple of inane conversations, Alan winds up dead. If Edgar did what any normal person would do and go to the cops, the movie would be over. So, of course, he has to behave like a spastic moron and drive off with Alan's body in the car and then dump the corpse in the desert.After that, Edgar hooks up with Veronica and Gloria (Alexandra Ackerman and Jodi Stanford). They're sisters who are on screen for an hour and behave like real human beings for about 32 seconds. The rest of the time they're either vamping it up like they're in a softcore porn flick that's had all the sex cut out or dumbly servicing the Almighty Plot Hammer. There's some stuff about a drug deal, Edgar being the world's biggest wuss, some thugs who apparently walk around with assault rifles and fedoras, a scene that's arbitrarily shot at weird angles straight out of the old Batman TV show and a secret that's so pedestrian you expect it to get run over by a car while jaywalking.In case I haven't been clear, Interstate is not good. There's not even any nudity or violence and the profanity in it is the sort of unimaginative stuff you hear on middle school playgrounds. These filmmakers demonstrate that they can do all of the technical things you have to do to make a movie, but they don't do any of it well. This film is like a 72 year old man with no feet running a marathon. You might be impressed that it could be done…but would you really want to sit and watch it?Interstate is one of those movies where after you rent it, you feel like you've been taken advantage of. The people who made it had to know it sucked. The people who distributed it had to know it sucked. All they cared about, however, was conning unsuspecting video store customers out of their hard earned money. So, if you ever see this DVD sitting on the shelf and think about getting it, do yourself a favor and just send the money to one of those Nigerian princes who keep e-mailing you. You'll get the same experience and you won't waste 89 minutes of your life sitting in front of the TV.

Saw this at a film festival last year. This isn't a typical thriller. It's more of a mystery noir film. Moody lighting, low key acting, murder and femmes fatals. If you rent it expecting car chases and fight scenes you'll be left on your appetite. If you're a fan of film noir, crime stories, this little gem will not disappoint. It also reminded me of Detour, the 1945 film by Edgar Ulmer. There is some creative use of camera work and lighting. Like I say, it's all very subtle compared to the typical "thrillers" we get nowadays. The special effects are great. With many Route 66 locations depicted like over the top Americana. The actors have some great moments, and other not so great but overall very professional considering their age. Music and sound could have been better but then again, this is low budget film making. I would recommend this movie to teenagers and fans of film noir everywhere.