AllMovie

Two friends hit the road to escape some homicidal gangsters with a score to settle in this angsty Gen-X flick set against the backdrop of the mid-'90s grunge music scene. Highway opens with its mohawked post-teen hero Jack (Jared Leto), up to his usual routine: smoking pot, cleaning pools, and engaging in vigorous sex with a mobster's wife. It isn't long before vengeful thugs come calling to his Las Vegas trailer-park home, however, and Jack has to flee town with his drug-dealing best buddy, Pilot (Jake Gyllenhaal). The two decide to travel to Seattle -- in the week preceding Kurt Cobain's suicide -- and along the way they encounter a succession of drifters, losers, and hangers-on, including a sweet-hearted prostitute named Cassie (Selma Blair). Highway's working title was "A Leonard Cohen Afterworld," a reference to a lyric from Kurt Cobain's song "Pennyroyal Tea"; the film was written by Scott Rosenberg, who previously made a name for himself with Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Beautiful Girls, and Con Air.