While Roadflower never strays beyond generic confines in any particularly adventurous way, Deran Sarafian is less concerned with action sequences and slaughter set-pieces than he is with attention to characters. The entire cast plays well and with often fine and subtle shadings that make Roadflower an immediately more interesting film. Particularly good are Adrienne Shelley as the bimbo who wilfully shuts out thought of murder; Josh Brolin as the hood who cannot go through with it; David Arquette who plays in almost a twisted parody of Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man (1988); John Pyper-Ferguson who gives a highly persuasive charge to the scenes in the jail; and Alexondra Lee who has a fine scene that toys with dangerous seduction when she encounters lead hood Craig Sheffer in a bathroom at the start of the film. The sole exception is Christopher Lambert who gives his usual wooden performance. However, Sarafian, as though resigned to the fact that he is lumbered with Lambert as a lead, sidelines him as much as possible while still allowing him to nominally remain the hero. Surprisingly, more time is spent on the characters and interactions of the four white trash thugs than the various families. The film is a clear labour of love on Sarafian’s part who enlists several family members and plays a minor role himself.

Subsequent to Roadflower, Deran Sarafian has worked as a television director. He did direct the tv movie Road Rage (1999), which has a similar plot to Roadflower, featuring a family being stalked along a highway by a psycho.