highway 61 movie review

What You Need To Know:

(LL, N, SSS, O, M, A, V) Approximately 15 obscenities and 2 profanities; brief rear female nudity; woman forces man to have sex at gunpoint & relatively explicit fornication in cemetery; corpse strung upside down by character claiming to be Satan & bargaining with devil treated with offhanded humor; lying & stealing; beer guzzling; and, fist-fight.

More Detail:

In a Canadian village, Pokey Jones discovers a corpse, and attracts the shiftless Jackie Bangs, who needs a place to hide illegal drugs and the body, whom she says was her brother, serves the purpose. She convinces Pokey to transport her and the deceased to New Orleans for “burial” (aka a drug deal). Thus begins HIGHWAY 61, a road movie full of bizarre adventures, caricatures rather than characters and fleeting views of the scenic armpits of America. Pokey and Jackie meet a deranged father with “Star Search” dreams for his three daughters. They have sex in a cemetary, after Jackie forces the issue at gunpoint. All the while, “Mr. Skin” pursues the duo, making Faustian deals along the way. We never are sure whether he is Satan, or a deranged eccentric. Thus, as far as the film is concerned, selling your soul is nothing to be concerned about. Instead, it’s a joke.

Films like this thrive on ambiguity and obtuse symbolism in lieu of well-drawn characters, meaningful story lines, or valid insights. No doubt, HIGHWAY 61 will meander around the country, playing for a few nights at “alternative” cinemas, or on college campuses, before landing on the back shelf of your local videostore.

• Coming Soon Theaters • Online
• Advanced Search
• Collections Top 500
• Film Awards
• Recommendations Movies • TV Shows
• Search by Name
• Popular Top 500
• My TV Shows
• My Calendar
• Coming Soon Premieres

Movie's ratings

• IMDb 7.0 1484
• Critics 100% 7
• Cast & Crew
• Technical Data

Highway 61

Sequels/Prequels

Related Movies There are no related titles yet, but you can add them:

Bruce mcdonald — best movies and tv shows.

Add a short review

280 characters

Sign up and you will see here friends impressions of the movie.

Friends comments and ratings, movies by téléfilm canada.

Trending movies

The best website for movie search and thoughts sharing with friends

• Browser extension

Highway 61 (1991)

Directed by bruce mcdonald.

• AllMovie Rating 6
• User Ratings ( 0 )
• Your Rating
• Overview ↓
• User Reviews ↓
• Cast & Crew ↓
• Related ↓

Description by Wikipedia

Highway 61 is a 1991 film by Canadian director Bruce McDonald. The film is an unofficial sequel to his 1989 film Roadkill; although focusing on different characters, it centres on a road trip beginning in Thunder Bay, Ontario, where the road trip depicted in the earlier film ended.

Alternate Titles

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

• Top Ten Lists
• Post author: eenableadmin
• Post published: August 5, 2019
• Post category: Uncategorized

HIGHWAY 61 (director/writer: Bruce McDonald ; screenwriters: Allan Magee/ Don McKellar ; cinematographer: Miroslaw Baszak ; editor: Michael Pacek ; music: Nash the Slash; cast: Don McKellar (Pokey Jones), Earl Pastko (Mr. Skin), Valerie Buhagiar (Jackie Bangs), Johnny Askwith (Claude), Peter Breck (Mr Watson) , Art Bergmann (Otto), Tracy Wright (Margo), Tav Falco (Motorcycle Gang Leader) , Namir Khan (Undertaker); Runtime: 104; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Colin Brunton/ Bruce McDonald ; Skouras Pictures; 1991-Canada) “A diverting episodic look at some eccentric characters on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 .”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Director Bruce McDonald (“Hard Core Logo”/”Pontypool”/”The Tracy Fragments”) takes his offbeat dark comedy on the road for a diverting episodic look at some eccentric characters on Bob Dylan’s Highway 61. The screenplay is co-written by the director, Allan Magee and, the film’s co-star, Don McKellar.

Good-natured Pokey Jones ( Don McKellar ) is a frustrated square trumpet player and the local barber in a desolate small-town in Ontario, the fictionalized Thunder Bay, who discovers the frozen corpse of an unidentified long-haired male in a tub outside his barbershop. The next morning the amoral hipster rock ‘n’ roll roadie Jackie Bangs ( Valerie Buhagiar ), on the run because she stole the cocaine stash from the heavy metal band she was accompanying in a big city gig, arrives in town by bus and after reading about the corpse in the local paper, decides to claim the corpse as her brother and stashes the drugs in the corpse. Jackie gets the naive stay-at-home Pokey to take her to New Orleans for the supposed funeral and he rides for the first time in the car his father left him when the family died in an accidental house fire over bad wiring.

On Highway 61, the odd couple have sex in a cemetery and are followed by a nut job from Baton Rouge, someone who thinks the Devil (Earl Pastko ). This weird character had the corpse before his demise sign a contract to give the Devil his soul when dead in exchange for the hockey stick factory worker receiving a free bus ticket. The so-called Devil wants the body so he can fulfill the signed contract and extract his soul back in Baton Rouge, in a public show he has planned.

En-route to the Big Easy the couple stop off for the barber to admire Dylan’s childhood home in Minnesota, make contact with a bullying weirdo SV traveling rifle-toting single father father, Watson ( Peter Breck ), and his three small girls he’s obsessed into making famous singers even though they lack talent, a motorcycle gang in Mississippi just hitting the road Easy Rider style, and a debauched rocker couple, Margo ( Tracy Wright ) and Otto ( Art Bergmann ), living out their perversions in a luxury mansion.

The road is filled with lost souls, offering various degrees of quirky humor. If there’s any poignancy, it comes about because McDonald has ulterior political motivations in showing how dumb Americans (and some Canadians) are to sell their souls so thoughtlessly to the Devil for so little. But aside from being offbeat and mildly amusing, there’s little else to recommend about the uneven film.

It should be noted that rockers Jello Biafra and Tav Falco make cameos.

REVIEWED ON 8/12/2013 GRADE: B

Dennis Schwartz: “Ozus’ World Movie Reviews”

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED DENNIS SCHWARTZ

You Might Also Like

Cathy come home “the wednesday play”, le beau serge.

Mutant Reviewers

A cult of cult movies, highway 61 (1991) — barber on the open road.

“I never left home, but I know every inch of this highway. I know it inside-out.”

Justin’s rating: Don’t sign away your soul, people. It’s not worth it no matter what the bribe.

Justin’s review: I am always down for a road trip movie, especially if it’s a comedy with likable characters. It’s an easy way to present an episodic format, but the way I look at it is that if I can’t get to go on a meandering, adventurous road trip right now in real life, at least I can live vicariously through these movie people enjoying one.

So let’s take a trip together, you and I, in the 1991 Canadian indie road trip flick Highway 61 . You chip in for gas, and I’ll pay for the next Waffle House feast.

Stuck in a small town, barber and trumpet player Pokey Jones (Don McKellar) has a yearning to hit the road and find a place where he can “play his heart.” He doesn’t take that step until a mysterious woman named Jackie Bangs (Valerie Buhagiar) breezes into town with a bag of drugs stolen from a heavy metal rock band. Claiming a dead body that Pokey found as her brother’s, Jackie stuffs the body and the drugs into a coffin and drags Pokey on a road trip from Canada down to New Orleans.

It’s not going to be anything near a normal road trip, which is just the way I like it. Pokey and Jackie have a knack for bumping into all kinds of outlandish folks and unlikely situations — including Satan, who is also traveling the back roads, wheeling and dealing for souls.

Pokey explains that traveling Highway 61, they’re tracing the history of music back to its roots. He’s the romantic, she’s the cynic trying to get drugs to a sale. No matter what their motivation, they’re going to have to contend with showbiz-obsessed father, a whacked-out rock star, a chicken hunt, a burned-out car, intimidating biker gangs, and more.

Along the way, Jackie and Pokey strike up a quirky friendship with undertones of romance. Pokey’s odd vocal mannerisms (he sort of talks like Balki from Perfect Strangers) and earnest sincerity stands in stark contrast to Jackie’s world-weary bad girl persona, but the two clearly want to look out for each other. He doesn’t question her obvious lie — that’s not her brother on the roof — and she doesn’t mock him for his dreams of being a jazz musician or using his dead parents’ car for a noble quest.

The main impression I got of Highway 61 is that it had the unmistakable aura of a ’90s indie. It’s hard to explain that feeling, but there’s nothing quite like it. It’s that rough-around-the-edges, semi-amateur cinematography, natural lighting, stammering conversations, not-quite-professional sound design, and all-around oddness. It’s the same aura that, say, Clerks , Party Girl , and Love and Other Catastrophes exhibit.

The rawness of these productions strangely enhance and display the earnest creativity involved. Seeing movies made without heavy studio interference is refreshing, doubly so when they’re as capable and self-assured as this one.

Highway 61 is an easy-going movie, a David Lynch-lite experience with genial people, the occasional roadside attraction, and a soundtrack that will get the toes a-tapping. I had an unexpectedly good time with it.

Intermission!

• “I don’t think a trumpet player would fit in with a BTO tribute band.”
• If someone is freezing from exposure, a hair dryer is not likely to revive them
• “I’m a fugitive from a heavy metal road crew.”
• She is really bad at making up fake names
• “Do you play that thing or do you just pose with it.”
• Selling your soul for some beer doesn’t seem like a good trade
• “Nice doing business with you, see you when you’re dead.”
• “You can’t just get up and leave.” “Yes, imagine all the… hair.”
• The customs agent hitting on Pokey
• “Is he dead?” “Yes.” “He better be.”
• The childhood home of Bob Dylan
• All the things Jackie steals, including burritos, life savings, and a dress
• “You can’t call a child Florida, what kind of family would do that?”
• “I’m sorry to say it, but you’re an ugly little girl.”
• Satan is a wiz at bingo
• Dating at gunpoint
• Ooh a macrame planter! What a prize!
• Sure, let’s park motorcycles in a hallway
• That is a really off-putting music video
• “It’s Picasso. Picasso the painter.”
• “NATHANNNNN!”
• “We’re going hunting for dinner. Gentlemen, load your guns.”
• Something is seriously wrong with that female singer
• Street barbering: “Act now!”
• “Why did you agree to that?” “Well, I’m pretty used to guns by now, and I could slit your throat before you could shoot me.”
• That’s a whole lot of Polaroids
• Satan likes to use a lot of fireworks in his presentations
• A Louisiana Viking funeral

Share this:

Leave a comment cancel reply.

• Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
• Subscribe Subscribed
• Copy shortlink
• Report this content
• View post in Reader
• Manage subscriptions
• Collapse this bar

Highway 61 (1992) Stream and Watch Online

Watch 'highway 61' online.

Looking to watch ' Highway 61 ' on your TV, phone, or tablet? Searching for a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or view the Bruce McDonald-directed movie via subscription can be confusing, so we here at Moviefone want to do right by you. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'Highway 61' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the various whats and wheres of how you can watch 'Highway 61' right now, here are some specifics about the Shadow Stars comedy flick. Released April 24th, 1992, 'Highway 61' stars Valerie Buhagiar , Don McKellar , Earl Pastko , Peter Breck The R movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 43 min, and received a user score of 67 (out of 100) on TMDb, which assembled reviews from 20 respected users. Want to know what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "A naive Canadian barber who knows US popular culture inside and out meets a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her "brother's" corpse from Thunder Bay, Ontario to New Orleans. Chaos ensues after the barber agrees to drive her, the corpse, and the drugs stashed within all the way." 'Highway 61' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Fandor .

'Highway 61' Release Dates

Similar movies.

Featured News

Movie Reviews

Follow Moviefone

Latest trailers.

• Movies & TV Shows
• Most Popular
• Leaving Soon
• Descriptive Audio
• Documentary
• Browse Channels

Featured Channels

• Always Funny
• History & Science
• Sci-Fi & Action
• Chills & Thrills
• Nature & Travel
• Black Entertainment
• Kids & Family
• International
• Gaming & Anime

• There are no locations currently available for this title

• Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert What's good about it are the performances by McKellar and Buhagiar, who look surprisingly like real people and not like movie actors, and a rock sound track by Nash the Slash, a group (or person) previously unknown to me, that's fun to listen to.
• Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Dennis Schwartz A diverting episodic look at some eccentric characters on Bob Dylan's Highway 61.

Take Plex everywhere

Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews

Original movie reviews untainted by time!

Unlawful Entry, Pinocchio, A League of Their Own, Highway 61, The Adjuster, 1992

Video Pick of the Week – Swing Shift

• Prelude to a Kiss, Universal Soldier, Boomerang, Wisecracks, The Best Intentions, 1992
• Addams Family Values, The Snapper, Dangerous Game, The Saint of Fort Washington, 1993

3 thoughts on “ Unlawful Entry, Pinocchio, A League of Their Own, Highway 61, The Adjuster, 1992 ”

I prefer this review of Pinocchio over their 1978 review. That review primarily focused on the groundbreaking animation and breifly mentioned the songs. This review focuses on Pinocchio’s character development and breifly talk about the animation.

i enjoy league of their own, the history of AAGPBL & how it started also the performances by Tom hanks, Geena davis, Lori petty & Rosie O’donnell were funny but interested. Just like other animated movies i like & enjoy Pinocchio.

Pingback: The Disney Years – 1992 – Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.