Adopt a Highway
Logan Marshall-Green's directorial debut.,References The Year of Living Dangerously (1982),Keep in touch
Written by James Patrick Van Dyke, Darryl Murphy Jr.
Published by Affix Alpha Music, Affix Beta Songs
Courtesy of Affix Music, LLC,My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library.

I was expecting more, not sure what though. While this certainly isn't a bad movie it does move very slowly in many spots and in some ways lacks authenticity. However the overall message is a very good one.

Ethan Hawke, who also produced, is Russell Millings. While it isn't really explained, a series of quick glances at old newspaper clippings tell us he was a California "three strikes" victim and was imprisoned for roughly 20 years for selling small quantities of marijuana. Now he is being released.

I don't know what goes on in prisons but in his case he knows nothing about cell phones, email, and the internet in general. However when he learns and looks up his father back in Wyoming he finds that he has died.

Russell gets a job as a general grunt at a restaurant, cleaning dishes and floors, taking out garbage. One night late, into the early morning, he finds a baby in the dumpster.

The movie has an unusual name but the connection is why not adopt a young person, not a real adoption but a symbolic one? Find a way to assure it is taken care of as the person grows into young adulthood.

My biggest issue is with how Hawke chose to portray Russell, almost as a nonverbal person. When asked to explain the sequence of events that led up to his discovering the baby, he stammers a very slight amount but doesn't explain anything. He plays him as a person who is severely handicapped verbally. I think the movie would have been more effective if he had played him differently.

The movie is only 80 minutes long, with credits, and to me it comes across as overly simple for the subject.,