Paradise Highway
Writer/producer/director Anna Gutto's feature debut shines a light on an important subject while simultaneously being an entertaining genre picture.
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“Paradise Highway” (now available in select theaters and on VOD) is the latest in a long, proud line of trucker movies such as “Duel,” “White-Line Fever,” “Smokey and the Bandit,” “Convoy,” “Every Which Way But Loose,” “Road Games,” “Big Trouble in Little China,” “Maximum Overdrive,” “Over the Top,” “Breakdown,” “Black Dog,” “Joy Ride,” “Snitch” and “The Ice Road.” It’s so big rig-centric that I’m certain it’ll sell a shload of Blu-ray and DVD copies in the bins of Love’s locations across the land. Hell, I felt like I should’ve worn a trucker hat and wolf t-shirt while watching it. Even more than a trucker movie, “Paradise Highway” is a story of sex trafficking and on that score it’s an important watch.
Juliette Binoche plays against type as Sally, a foul-mouthed trucker living her life on the road. As Sally’s brother Dennis (Frank Grillo) is about to be released from prison, he has a job for her that just might save his life. Dennis has a package he needs Sally to courier and deliver. Turns out the package is a pre-teen girl named Leila (Hala Finley of Robert Rodriguez’s “We Can Be Heroes”) and the recipients are sex traffickers Claire (Christiane Seidel, “The Queen’s Gambit”) and Terrence (Walker Babington, late of Apple TV+’s “Black Bird”).
Sally doesn’t want to deliver Leila to the traffickers, but she feels a loyalty to Dennis and owes him a debt for taking the brunt of their late father’s abuse. As such Sally keeps Leila at an arm’s length, but her defenses ultimately come down and the woman and the girl build a bond. All the while bickering FBI agents Gerick (Morgan Freeman) and Finley Sterling (Cameron Monaghan) are in pursuit hoping to rescue Leila.
It took me a while to fall into the movie’s rhythms (Binoche felt a tad out of place at first peppering in a few too many F-bombs to establish edginess, the banter between Sally and her fellow lady truckers over their CB radios is interminable), but once I did it worked for me.
Casting Binoche and Grillo as siblings is smart as they look like they could be related. (The difference in their accents is explained away early on.) The chemistry between two different pairs carries the day – those being Binoche and Finley (she’s really a good, little actress tasked with doing and saying things you don’t often see or hear child performers do on screen) and Freeman and Monaghan. The ladies lend the proceedings considerable warmth; the gentlemen some much-needed levity.
Writer/producer/director Anna Gutto should be applauded for shining a light on an important subject matter while simultaneously making an entertaining genre movie. “Paradise Highway” is her feature directorial debut – it’s an assured enough effort that I’m curious to see Gutto’s sophomore offering and that’s a big 10-4, good buddy.