Routes barbares

Having spawned an entire exploitation subgenera of outlaw biker films with his excellent "Easy Rider," could Peter Fonda do the same for movies about eighteen wheels of justice? "High-Ballin'" actually beat "Convoy" by one month on it's release date for being the first movie action movie about truckers (although "Smokey and the Bandit" came out the year before), but it's a pretty silly inconsequential hixploitation flick, and Jerry Reed is really the main character here. Reed and Fonda have to fight off a bunch of trucker thugs hired by a local crime boss who wants to put independent truckers like them out of business. Helen Shaver and Michael Ironside, in his first named-character role (he plays Butch), also appear in the film. Overall, I enjoyed this dumb movie and so will others if you're a fan fo hixploitation/rednexploitation type of films (think good ol' boys fighting one another ALA "Gator" or "Walking Tall"), even if it's pretty routine and nothing all that memorable. "Smokey," "Convoy," and "White Line Fever" are all still better trucker films, but I was entertained by "High-Ballin'."