“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