Highway 395 (2000) User Reviews

Seems like it was a TV series pilot

[Johnny_West · 5/10 · 16 November 2021]

This does not seem like a movie. It is more like a TV series pilot which tries to hit every type of crime story in one TV movie. The pace is hard to follow. There is a sleazxy methadone dealing family of weird perverts. They have their own crime spree that covers almost every crime. Then there is a serial killer who hunts men at the truck stops to have sex with them and then kill them. Hunter actually saves his life at one point, while killing a different killer. Then there is one local townie who is a relapsed meth-head who has a deadly secret. Nobody suspects him. So there are three sets of criminals who cross paths at various points, and Hunter is trying to tie the loose ends by killing them all.

Fred Dryer plays the son of the local sheriff, and he tries to be his Hunter character with some Rambo mixed in. Every interaction that he has with a suspect ends in the death of the suspect, and yet there is never any follow-up, crime scene investigation, etc. Hunter just shoots people dead, and then walks away to get coffee at the local diner.

At one point a main character is getting beaten up by one of the methadone drug dealers, and Dryer/Hunter just kicks the door in and shoots the drug dealer. Then he makes a couple of funny remarks and leaves. The dead drug dealer, the drug money, the guns, are all just left behind. Nobody shows up to take any evidence into custody at any time. No ambulances, no coroners, not even a guy with a shovel to bury the dead.

Towards the end of the movie, it is hard to figure out who is killing who, and which ones are the meth drug dealers, who is the serial killer, and who are the victims. This is a movie that you should just enjoy watching Fred Dryer/ Hunter killing almost everyone in the town, and let the "crime scene investigators" figure it out later, if they ever show up!

Bizarre... to put it mildly!

[Wizard-8 · 3/10 · 10 March 2021]

Fred Dryer was in one of my favorite 1980s TV shows ("Hunter") when I was a teenager. He directed several episodes of the series, and I thought his direction on those episodes was pretty solid. Years later, when I first heard word that Dryer had directed his first movie (this one, of course), I was really interested in seeing it. I didn't expect it to play in theaters, but I did anticipate a video release. However, it never appeared on VHS or DVD during the next few years. After a while, I forgot about the movie. But then just the other day when I was at the Tubi TV streaming site, I accidentally discovered that the movie was there after almost 20 years sitting on the shelf, and also found out that it had been released on DVD and Blu-Ray a year earlier. So curious, I sat down to watch it.

It didn't take me long into watching the movie, however, to realize the probable reason why it was never released on video - it is pretty bad. For starters, the movie's tone goes all over the place. Sometimes it's a thriller, sometimes it's a slapstick comedy, sometimes it's an action movie, sometimes it's an experimental film, and sometimes it's a look at various kooky personalities. The movie never finds a firm footing and stay on it. That may also explain why the storyline is (almost) incomprehensible. There seems to be a LOT missing from the movie. For example, Dryer's character kills several people during the course of the movie, but as soon as the victims are killed, they are immediately forgotten about and their deaths are never (or pretty much never) brought up again!

In fairness to Dryer, in the director's chair he does manage to coax acceptable performances from some of his cast. And despite the jumbled storytelling, he does manage to not only make some eye-catching visuals, he does manage to generate some real atmosphere. The surreal tone is unlike that of almost no other movies, and you also feel the isolation and parched environment. Dryer may have been trying to make a unique movie, but while I applaud his intent to make something different, the end results for the most part just don't work. Had he aimed for something more conventional, we might have had something here. But overall, the final results illustrate the most likely reason why Dryer has to date not directed another movie.

Fred Dryer, Film Maker.

[michaelwolinski · 7/10 · 30 December 2002]

Fred Dryer really took the reigns of this film and went with it. He did an excellent job of transferring mood, visuals and emotion to the screen in his motion picture directorial debut. I had seen his directing on HUNTER, and was curious to see how he would do with a film. Dryer really did a superb job with this material. It is well worth seeking out and I am anxious to see what Fred Dryer, the Director, has in store next.

Don't waste the time

[davidclem · 2/10 · 27 April 2022]

Poor acting. Worse writing. Worse yet editing. Painful to watch. There's a reason that most of the actors in this movie have so few credits. Geoffrey Lewis is wasted in this picture.

I see a cult classic coming...

[balecox · 10/10 · 23 February 2002]

Anytime a filmmaker can sum up the films point in just a couple of opening scenes, he's onto something. The camera work stands up against any picture I've ever seen. This is so much more than a road movie or even a thriller. It's a smart, tightly written and directed psychological gem. Every performance is on the money, especially Dryer's low keyed, eagle-eyed cop, and Diane Delano's gun-toting psycho chick. She almost steals the picture. Forget Hunter -- think Coen Brothers and Quentin Tarantino. Highway 395 has just replaced Fargo as my favorite flick pick.