Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby

Matthew Bright's unique retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Hansel and Gretel is a twisted, violent, shocking and entertaining film which takes the 'road movie' concept and injects it with class-A hallucinogenics. The result is a lurid nightmare tale of prostitutes, serial killers, cannibalism and paedophilia.

Natasha Lyonne shows she is capable of far more than just teen comedies by starring as White Girl, a bulimic teenager who poses as a whore in order to savagely attack and rob her 'tricks'. Sent to prison for 25 years, she befriends Cyclona (María Celedonio), a psychologically fragile murderous chronic-masturbator(!) and together they escape and head for Tijuana, Mexico, where Cyclona hopes they can find sanctuary with her childhood protector, Sister Gomez (Vincent Gallo).

This freakish fairy tale is certainly not for mainstream audiences, but those who dig more unusual fare should certainly get a kick from the non-stop weirdness on display. With Bright's array of 'colourful' characters and a story that unfolds in an unpredictable fashion, the film certainly never bores.

Much fun can be had spotting the parallels between this film and its source material, Hansel and Gretel. The film uses the theme of food prevalent in the Grimm's classic story, and features an interesting take on the 'trail of breadcrumbs' and a really nasty 'witch'.

A heady concoction of exploitation, art-house, action and horror, Confessions of a Trickbaby is recommended to fans of cinema's wild side, and particularly to those who enjoyed Natural Born Killers, with which it shares a similar vibe.

Anyone who has seen the first film in this series will notice numerous major differences between the two films. While the story line and plot structure are very creative and innovative, the way the story was portrayed was less than commendable. Many parts of the film seem overtly sexual and as if they were created for fetish more than to add to the film. There were multiple parts of the film like this, which made it seem more like pornography than a legitimate film starring females. I think this film would've been much better without the extreme efforts to seem "weird", and also without the overuse of pointless and explicit sexuality.

'Freeway II' is just slightly disappointing compared to the original 'Freeway', but once again shows that writer/director Matthew Bright has ideas and attitude to spare. The first movie retold Little Red Riding Hood, this one takes on Hansel and Gretel. Natasha Lyonne is no Reese Witherspoon, but her spunky role here as White Girl, and her memorable turn in the forgotten gem 'Slums Of Beverly Hills' proves that she is more talented than lame-brained crud like the 'American Pie' series and 'Detroit Rock City'. Maria Celedonio had up until this point passed me by apart from a small role in Schrader's 'Touch', but she is sensational here as the psychotic necrophile Cyclona. Vincent Gallo ('Buffalo 66', 'The Funeral', 'Palookaville') has never been less than mesmerizing on screen, even in his dialogue-less blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameos in 'Goodfellas' and 'Basquiat', but portraying the utterly freaky Sister Gomez is one of his most bizarre moves to date! Gallo seems set on carrying on the scene stealing nut job reputation of the late legendary Timothy Carey. More power to him! Gallo even brings along his 'Truth Or Consequences NM' co-star Max Perlich ('Drugstore Cowboy', 'Georgia', 'Gummo') as Flacco, a mumbling hunchback. Perlich doesn't completely surpass his similarly gonzo bit part in Johnny Depp's 'The Brave', but it's great to see him try! 'Freeway II' will appeal to fans of Gregg Araki, John Waters and Bruce McDonald more than Michael Bay lovers that's for sure! A must see for trash cinema lovers.

This film doesn't deserve the hammering it seems to be getting at the hands of the IMDB voters. Maybe Freeway II does try a bit too hard to be trendy, and Vincent Gallo is a bit irritating. On the positive side, there is some great photography, especially when the girls hit Mexico, the soundtrack is fantastic and Natasha Lyonne is awesome.

If you want to rent something a bit colorful, then you could do a lot worse.

I remember owning this movie on VHS back in the day, but oddly enough I couldn't recall the contents of the storyline. So as I stumbled upon an opportunity to watch "Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby" here in 2022, of course I opted to sit down and revisit the movie.

Writer and director Matthew Bright actually managed to piece together a rather unique and somewhat far out there type of movie here. But it worked well in favor of the movie, because all the absurdity, the strange characters, the weird events, and everything just seemed to click together all nicely and compiled an oddly enjoyable movie.

The storyline in "Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby" is strange, no doubt about it, especially because the characters are odd individuals carrying heavy baggage of damaged pasts with them, and while it does come off as being a bit too far out there at first, stick with it, because the storyline picks up and starts to make more and more sense as the movie progress.

I found "Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby" to be an interesting movie as it wasn't your typical mainstream movie.

The acting performances in the movie were good, and while I think I was only familiar with David Alan Grier here, then I will say that they had put together a good cast ensemble. I liked the performance of Natasha Lyonne (playing White Girl) and Maria Celedonia (playing Cyclona) in particular.

If you enjoy movies that are somewhat offbeat, then you definitely should give "Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby" a chance. I was genuinely entertained by revisiting this movie from writer and director Matthew Bright.

My rating of "Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby" lands on a six out of ten stars.