Now here’s a film that should be one to keep an eye on, for all sorts of wildly varying reasons: Monte Hellman, the director of the legendary road movie, Two-Lane Blacktop, hasn’t made a movie in over 20 years, since 1989’s Blind Terror (aka Silent Night, Deadly Night 3).
But – and you should be able to see this coming – the 77 year-old is back back back after his Malickian sabbatical with Road To Nowhere, an indie flick described as a romantic thriller about a filmmaker who becomes enmeshed in a criminal conspiracy.
That’s Reason For Interest #1. Reason For Interest #2 is the movie’s cast, for today Shannyn Sossamon and Dominique Swain, two members of the school of coulda-beens, signed on to join the already-cast Cliff De Young, John Diehl, Waylon Payne and Tygh Runyan. Sossamon and Swain were on the verge of big things a few years ago, so maybe this will represent the start of a double comeback. Who knows?
Sossamon, who seems born to play a femme fatale, will finally get her chance, while Swain plays a blogger who uncovers part of the mystery. So it’s a noir, but with a decidedly modern edge.
And Reason For Interest #3: the film has been written by Steven Gaydos, Variety’s Executive Editor, who previously wrote the screenplays for some of Hellman’s previous movies, including Blind Terror. It’s always interesting when a film critic crosses the imaginary white line, but we expect good things from Gaydos, a sharp writer and film boffin. At the very least, if the script isn’t filled with Variety phrases like ‘thesps’, ‘helmer’ and ‘pix’, we’ll be disappointed.
Road To Nowhere, which obviously shares its title with a particularly famous Talking Heads song, is currently filming in L.A.