Highway

When pool boy Jack (Jared Leto) is caught in flagrante delicto with a mobster's wife, he and boyhood friend Pilot (Jake Gyllenhaal, October Sky, Donnie Darko) hit the cross country highway trying to stay one step ahead of hired goons. Angling for Seattle, with plenty of wares (drugs) to sell for cash along the way, the pair engage in the usual road trip picaresque adventures enroute, including a restaurant stop where Jack meets and saves Selma Blair (love interest Cassie) from a date worse than death. With Cassie hitching a ride, the group--which gets larger and more strung out as days pass--eventually swings into the Emerald City, just in time for a vigil for the late Kurt Cobain. As an extra (who ended up on the cutting room floor), I admit that I was more interested in seeing this than the average bear, but Highway turned out to be so outlandish and improbable that it's no surprise that rather than pulling up at your local multiplex, the film took an off-ramp for a straight-to-video release. Very optional. (J. Williams)