High Rolling (1977)

aka: High Rolling In A Hot Corvette
Dir: Igor Auzins

Bottoms being out-acted by his mop of hair

When Texas (Joseph Bottoms BLIND DATE) an American kicking about Australia, getting by on his good looks, is fired from his carnie job due to ballin' a woman in the shooting gallery he was supposed to be manning, he grabs his friend Alby (Grigor Taylor INNOCENT PREY) and together they head south. Care free and without money they make their way hitch-hiking. Picked up by a middle aged man in a Corvette, when Arnold the driver puts the moves on Grigor, Grigor clubbers him unconscious and Texas and Grigor seize the opportunity to steal the man's wallet containing hundreds of dollars and his hot Corvette. Being dim as they are, the two don't put two plus two together after  discovering a large quantity of pot stashed in the car along with a pistol. Instead they continue on their way to Surfers Beach, now flush with cash. Along the way they pick up the underage Lynn (Judy Davis BARTON FINK) who plans on becoming a hooker once they reach their destination.

The hot Corvette

At their destination they splash around the stolen cash, assault every woman they see on the street, act like boorish jerks, get ripped off by a couple of cabaret singers and learn the hard way that Arnold is a mobster and intent on tracking down the bastards who stole from him. It all ends with an ill-conceived bus robbery. Bottoms' portrayal of Texas is grating enough but then throw in what is supposed to be a comedic, oh aren't they such scoundrels, caper and it instead drives home that I've regrettably just spent ninety minutes watching a horny scumbag and his dim witted pal act like idiots and wished that they had instead crashed the Corvette when they first  pilfered it and died in a car fire.

This is Judy Davis' first film

Did anyone find this thinly plotted, anger inducing, buddy road picture funny when it was first released? Unless you must see what a right hand drive Corvette looks like or what shops made up the high street on a coastal Aussie city in the '70's, skip this one.

The Australian  band Sherbet provides the soundtrack.

* out of  ****