Review of Interstate

Interstate (2007)
3/10
Like watching a 72 year old man with no feet run a marathon
23 September 2010
Warning: Spoilers
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.
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