High-Ballin'

This movie is made for truckers in the day of having long hauls, long distance traveling, and suddenly, there are hijackers in the wait. Life is a gamble, especially in the trucking field. Being an independent contractor is one thing, working for a big company is another. It's best to stick with strong friends when you back's against the wall. Jerry Reed, fresh from the first "Smokey and the Bandit" get to ride the big rigs again. This time, he's a struggling trucker who gets to stand up to the big boss of a trucking company who is forcing the independents off the roads and drive them out of business. King Carroll(Chris Wiggins) runs a big company who will do anything to keep the indies off the road. When one of the truckers(Lex Tyrell) is head of a hijacking ring for Carroll. He had one trucker jumped. And when a former stuntman named Rane (Peter Fonda) , joins the Iron Duke (Reed), along with Pickup(Helen Shaver) the back up is all here. This movie is more like a western, only with diesel "horses". There was a lot of action there. Some silliness added though, but I enjoyed it very much. This movie is for truckers. 2 out of 5 stars.

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'."

Peter Fonda is best known for his turn as Wyatt in 1969's Easy Rider. In that film he rides an iconic "Captain America" chopper, a customized Harley-Davidson Panhead from the 1950s with a stars and stripes paint scheme. It is a beautiful bike. In this film Fonda enters during the opening credits on a dreary day with a helmet on his head riding a very compact, vintage Indian Sport Scout. I think that director Peter Carter's contrast was intentional.

Duke Boykin (Jerry Reed) runs a trucking business. As the credits end, Rane pulls into a truck stop and meets up with Duke who is having a problem with his trucks getting hijacked by a group of thugs who use the guise of a stranded woman on the road to get the trucks to stop. Rane used to drive for Duke. Now Duke wants to get Rane back in a rig to help fight off these thieves.

One night after getting Duke to go home and sleep off his time at the bar, he notices a woman who was at the truck stop the day before. He finds out that Pick-up (Helen Shaver) is not a name for what he thinks it might be. Truckers pick up loads, and that is why she calls herself Pick-up. Rane and Duke pick up a load of stock cars and head for Green Bay (where I live). They pick up Duke's kid Tanker (Chris Langevin), who begged to go along for the ride. Duke says he just couldn't say no to the kid. (Sorry, Wisconsinites. No shots of Green Bay here. This whole film was shot in Ontario).

While navigating their trip they come across a detour that is not legit. The road they get detoured onto has a bridge that is too low for their load. Although they find a way to get past the bridge, they still end up being confronted by those thugs. A chase ensues. They get Pick-up on the CB. Rane gets creative as these thugs fire at them. This provides for a very entertaining chase scene, which includes fun performances from Reed and Fonda. I won't tell you how it ends, but Rane gets explosively creative. Of course, they will not get rid of these pests without some assistance from Pick-up.

How will Duke's business survive? He can't keep his farm at this rate. Rane has an idea. Roll a high one. All they need is a pitcher and a catcher. I'm not going to explain what that means, but it sets up the second half of the movie. I will say that it has something to do with running liquor. High-Ballin' is trucking term for making good time on the road. And you will have a great time watching this movie as its 99 minutes flies by. This movie beat the more successful trucking movie Convoy to the box office by a few weeks, which may have derailed its financial success a bit.

I can't see why people are downing this movie because it doesn't really fit in a genre like Action or Comedy. This is a movie, it tells a story, and some parts are funny, there is some action, there are some serious moments and it is a little dark. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll see some action.

Overall it's a story about a big trucking company trying to squash the independent truckers out of business with Jerry Reed and Peter Fonda fighting against The Man for all the colorful, CB jive talking' independents out there.

The main problem with the movie, in my eyes, is the dreary and bleak scenery and Jerry Reed's overuse of "Son" as a form of address. There are some parts of the plot that are weak and not well explained, like the female lead "Pick Up". She eats at truckstops with the truckers and is on the CB and acts like a trucker but she just drives a pick up truck with exhaust risers and a camper on back. What is her job? Just cruisin' the highways pretending to be a trucker? She almost seems like a trucker groupie/wannabe, a step up from a lot lizard. Also not clear is why the big trucking company wants the independent drivers to quit and start working for the big company. The independents still haul loads for The Man and have to pay his fees. It is never really made clear.

This movie was entertaining all the way through the only real downer was the scenery. Wherever they are up in Canada is dirty, snowy and downright depressing.

If you like trucker movies and Jerry Reed, give it a spin. It isn't as awesome as Convoy it still is a good view.

If you think you might be getting into a jovial SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT type film thanks to HIGH-BALLIN's ad art, think again. What the film delivers is a dark, moody piece set in snowy Canada that doesn't seem to know what direction it exactly wants to go in. Reed plays Duke, an independent trucker who just happens to be next on the list of a bunch of local truck hijackers. Fonda is Rane, an old trucking buddy come to visit for a spell and ends up helping Duke take on the hijackers. Is it supposed to be a comedy? Well, there are some funny moments. Hard ass action flick? Well, there are some cool stunts. Romantic drama? Well, yeah, there are some tender moments. For some reason though, there is that aforementioned dark tone that somehow squeezes out any ounce of humanity and replaces it with an ominous aura that lays itself out on the characters and the landscape. Maybe it's 1970's Canada, as I got the same feeling watching Cronenberg's FAST COMPANY. It may sound as if I don't like this film but I do. It's different and odd, especially for it's genre. Definitely worth a look.