HIGHWAY 61
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Weird little Canadian comedy with lots
of original and off-beat characters and a style reminiscent
of REPO MAN. Off-beat pair of strangers take Highway 61 from
Thunder Bay south to New Orleans, followed by Mr. Skin, who
may be the Devil. A small gem of a comedy. Rating: +2 (-4
to +4).
Pokey Jones (played by Dan McKellar) is the town barber of Pickerel Falls, Ontario. Of course the name Pickerel Falls makes this place sound more scenic and exciting than it really is. Pokey dreams of getting out of Pickerel Falls by playing trumpet and as a trumpet player he makes a pretty good barber. Then Pokey's dog, Iggy Pup, finds a frozen body in the bathtub in Pokey's backyard. Pokey is unable to revive the corpse with a hair dryer, but becomes famous in Pickerel Falls anyway. His fame attracts two strangers to him. One is Mr. Skin, who has come to collect the corpse's soul. Uh, Mr. Skin collects souls. (Skin: "I'll give you $20 for your soul." [long pause] Wino: "What's the catch?") Only slightly less strange is a roadie who claims the corpse as her brother and wants Pokey to transport it and her to New Orleans ... after hiding a rubber tube full of drugs down the corpse's esophagus.
Writer/actor Dan McKellar and director Bruce McDonald are equal opportunity filmmakers, laughing at people on both sides of the United States-Canadian border, but at the same time making some very pithy observations about American popular culture. A short visit with two music video rock stars in a garish fancy mansion may say as much in a few minutes as THIS IS SPINAL TAP did in a whole film. Then there is the father raising three talentless daughters to be the next Andrews Sisters.
The NEW YORK TIMES reports that ROADKILL, a previous collaboration between McDonald and McKellar, won best film at the 1989 Toronto Film festival and hopefully HIGHWAY 61 will bring more attention to their films. They have a fresh eye for examining their world and the ability to repeatedly catch their viewer off-guard and off-balance. This is a small independent Canadian film so it will not likely play at the big United States multiplexes. Let's hope it gets distributed on video. I rate HIGHWAY 61 a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzy!leeper
leeper@mtgzy.att.com
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