Neil Young's 1982 comic mess of a feature left many faithful fans baffled and was otherwise unappreciated at the time of its release. But with the benefit of hindsight and shifts in pop culture in the last couple of decades, much of Human Highway now feels warm and funny where it once looked disastrously undisciplined. Nostalgia helps: gilded memories of Devo's decadent antics long ago now make their recurring role in this film (as nuclear plant workers bathed in a suspicious red glow) almost sentimentally appealing. Similarly, Dennis Hopper's role as a chattering nutcase and short-order cook named Cracker looks sharper and more laughable now, and Dean Stockwell's perfectly timed performance as a slimeball businessman is even more entertaining knowing the former child actor was on the threshold of a career revival. (Stockwell is also credited as a writer and codirector of Human Highway.) The story, such as it is, concerns the goofy goings-on at a remote diner and gas station just down the road from a disintegrating nuclear plant. Stockwell's character has inherited the failing, ramshackle eatery and is crafting secret plans to torch the place. Meanwhile, Young's character, a dorky mechanic, swoons in the presence of a favorite waitress (Charlotte Stewart), bickers with his boyish partner (Russ Tamblyn), and dreams of playing music to an audience. Much of the film looks spontaneously conceived, but the players are all so good they know exactly where the laughs are. Influences are easier to spot now, too, particularly the freewheeling set-ups of Paul Morrissey and John Waters (though without their perversity). The hyperreal sets and backdrops actually anticipate Tim Burton by a couple of years, and overall the direction is more sure than most of us could see at the time. --Tom Keogh
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: The Truth About Neil Young Comment: This film is perplexing. It has a low budget, flat video look to it, with big name actors(Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell) acting like themselves and acting badly in cheap disguises(ie Dennis Hopper as "the Sheik" doing silent film-style acting, his reinvestigation of Rudolph Valentino's "the Sheik"?). The soundtrack has bits and pieces of Devo, as well as Neil Young doing his music through what he imagines to be a Devo-esque filter(which falters). His acting is either brilliant and comedic or excruciating, depending on who you ask. Was Neil Young attempting (in a vampiric fashion) to mine Devo for the interesting, innovative and subversive elements that made up their early career ? Why was he playing a child-like simpleton who at one point encounters a free-basing (corporate?)rocker in the back of the limousine, who then has the hallucination of BEING a rock star ? Doesn't this seem like perverse character plagiarism, with the inclusion of Booji Boy (a fixture in Devo since '74),who makes appearances throughout this film, who in his "real life" plays a child-like simpleton who speaks the truth within a band that weren't exactly rock stars ? The "dream sequence" is a horrible clash of musical freedom and idealism circa 1967 morphing into a skin crawling musical wankfest, where the rest of Devo is hardly filmed. The focus is on Neil Young essentially molesting Booji Boy with his guitar. The truest moment (I think) is when Booji Boy begins to bang his head from frustration, pain or shame on the playpen, like he wishes this assault would stop ! The "No Nukes" angle seems very late 70's -- and if this was supposed to somehow instigate rational protest against the nuclear industry, well, it's not very effective at that.
I cannot imagine the circumstances under which this film was made -- whose money, the meetings about the film and the ongoing egos and ideas and ideals...Quite a mystery...That said, this film is like nothing else I have ever seen. Customer Rating: Summary: A very mixed bag Comment: Just because you like ice cream and tomato sauce doesn't mean you should mix 'em together. I think that's what happened here. I couldn't imagine not liking a movie with Neil Young, Devo, Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell, etc.... well, live and learn.
The pieces of this movie don't hang together well. It's like there were two different films and someone just mashed them together with no regard for whether or not they would fit. On one side we have the somewhat didactic Devo pieces, with Booji Boy in a role similar to the chorus in a Greek play; he's like a court jester, who gets away with speaking ugly truths because he's too silly to take seriously.
On the other side we have Neil Young's surreal pseudo-story. Despite some interesting snippets of dialog, no particular thread is developed far enough to inspire any real interest in the story, and no character is developed enough to make us care what happens to them. Which, in a way, is probably Young's point - the tiny events of our little lives just aren't as interesting as we think they are, and they don't matter. But that doesn't make for engaging storytelling.
But, between Devo's solid personification of doom and Young's dreamlike depiction of everyday life, there is one amazing performance which, in my opinion, redeems the movie. It's their joint rendition of "Hey Hey My My." This lengthy, frenzied, and apparently spontaneous studio session is the only honest moment in the entire movie. All the campiness, tongue-in-cheek lecturing, and coyness that candy-coats the film's depiction of our shallow, ugly civilization is put aside for a straightforward primal scream. The speeches and the dreamy videos are nice, but the wailing fury of this number is a catharsis of disgust, contempt, and disillusionment. Young and Devo work together as if in a trance, and no one seems to want to break the spell. It's genuine and moving.
Customer Rating: Summary: One Fine Day In Linear Valley Comment: Apart from "Dr. Strangelove", I think this is the only pre-apocalyptic comedy I've ever seen. Young's film, however, takes a warmer approach; most of the characters are likeable and the ending is softened quite a bit from what you would expect. It was interesting to see some of these folks playing against their own public images: Neil Young plays himself, a dorky garage mechanic named Lionel Switch, and a crack-smoking crooner who looks like Wayne Newton. Charlotte Stewart ("Eraserhead", "Twin Peaks", "Little House On The Prairie") plays Lionel's cute waitress girlfriend, Russ Tamblyn-- an accomplished dancer-- plays Lionel's equally-dorky friend Fred who falls down a lot, and Dennis Hopper plays a genial, loudmouthed chef (a bit like Ralph Kramden). The members of Devo appear in the film as well (along with their mascot Booji Boy, who has a great surreal conversation with Tamblyn); they play a snide group of nuclear waste-disposal guys whom no one likes except Hopper's character, who thinks they're the hope of America. They tend to act as a sort of harbinger of doom, along with a crow who also seems like a bad omen whenever he shows up...
The film really has no story; it's just a series of incidents that continue on until the movie ends, but the incidents are fun to watch and sort of bittersweet in retrospect. And the music is good too! Customer Rating: Summary: Not exactly bad, but not really that good either Comment: When something goes unreleased for a long time, it can develop a sort of mythology around it (witness The Beach Boys' "Smile" album). My guess is that Neil Young fans had been wondering about this movie for years, so Neil just went ahead and said, "Okay, you asked for it", so here's the movie, such as it is. Had it been released in '82 or so, it definitely would have bombed in theatres. What does it have going for it? Well, you do get a dazzling dream sequence set to the music of "Goin' Back", some of the most awkwardly delivered comedy ever filmed, the bizarre spectacle of Hopper acting as if he's in a completely different film from everyone else, and peculiarly DEVOlved versions of "Hey, Hey, My, My" and "Worried Man Blues". Much as I like the people involved, it just seems like a movie that probably looked great on paper but no one could be bothered to translate it to film in a semi-coherent manner. I sort of enjoyed it (particularly the musical moments), but I can't think of anyone I'd recommend this movie to. Customer Rating: Summary: whacked out! Comment: I know a lot of people out there still do acid, if you are one of those people...this movie is for you! I like acid, devo, and rock n' roll. I like this move. That is all.
