Highway Time (2000)

Five petty felons quickly discover that a four-day stint of highway clean-up duty is not going to be spent cleaning the highway. When their supervising deputy disappears over a hill to target shoot all day, with only a warning to behave or their duty will be extended, the crew discovers there is no trash to pick up on this highway anyway.

Blade (Sammi Rotibi) immediately gives up any attempt to appear as if he's working, retreating to the shade of an oak tree. But Rudy (Daniel Bryant) has reason to avoid more highway time. He cajoles the others, a rebellious shoplifter, Autumn (Erin Underwood), a finicky and nervous 50 year old, Diane (Caroline McWilliams), and a hung-over car mechanic, Bruce (Courtney Gains) into at least appearing to work.

The first day is long and hot until Diane musters up the courage to use the porta-potty. She is stunned to see something other than her face in the tiny mirror hanging there. Unsure if its her imagination or not, Diane finds frequent reason to visit the bathroom, seeing increasingly intriguing reflections.

When the deputy returns to the same spot the next day, the rag-tag foursome resorts to passing the time by conducting a telephone ruse to convince Bruce's girlfriend that he's still at work. Everything changes when the crew stumbles upon a partially buried stash of valuable drugs. They decide to hide the goods in the bus, planning to retrieve them the next day when they can all go together to make the sale. Settling in to pass time, they all find reason to visit the bathroom, except Blade, who remains aloof and remote resting in the tree. The mysterious mirror shows increasingly revealing reflections to each of them, and we come to understand the loneliness underlying each of their lives. The final day's cataclysmic events reveal that much more than money has been found among them, and the real source of riches isn't what they thought it was.

87 Minute Feature Film | DV

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