powwow highway movie review

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Anyone who can name his 1964 Buick "Protector" and talk to it like a pony has a philosophy we can learn from. Philbert Bono is the name of the philosopher. He is a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, and near the beginning of "Powwow Highway" he and a friend, Buddy Red Bow, set out to ride Protector from Lame Deer, Mont., to Sante Fe, N. M.

They go by way of the Dakotas, because to Bono the best way to get to a place is not always the straightest way.

"Powwow Highway" is the story of their journey, and in one sense it's a road movie and a buddy movie, but in another sense it's a meditation on the way American Indians can understand the land in terms of space, not of time. Philbert never states it in so many words, but it's clear he doesn't think of a trip to Santa Fe in terms of hours or miles, but in terms of the places he must visit between here and there to make it into a journey and not simply the physical relocation of his body.

The movie supplies a plot in order to explain why the two Indians need to take their journey, but the plot is the least interesting element of the film. It involves a scheme against Buddy, who is a tribal activist and opposes a phony land-rights grab that's being directed at some Indian territories. His sister is thrown into jail in Santa Fe, and he must go there to bail her out, and that will get him out of Montana at a crucial time. And so on.

The plot is not the point. What "Powwow Highway" does best is to create two unforgettable characters and give them some time together.

It places them within a large network of their Indian friends so we get a sense of the way their community still shares and thrives. As Philbert points Protector east instead of south, as he visits friends and sacred Indian places along the road, he doesn't try to justify what he's doing. It comes from inside. And it comes, we sense, from a very old Indian way of looking at things. Buddy is much more modern and impatient - he's Type A - but as their journey unfolds, he can begin to see the sense of it.

The movie develops a certain magical intensity during the journey, and much of that comes from the chemistry between the two lead actors.

Philbert is played by Gary Farmer , a tall, huge man with a long mane of black hair and a gentle disposition. He speaks softly and sees things with a blinding directness. Buddy (A Martinez) is more "modern," more political, angrier. Their friendship has survived their differences.

The movie was shot entirely on location, and the set decoration, I suspect, consists of whatever the camera found in its way. (If this is not so, it is a great tribute to the filmmakers, who made it seem that way.) We visit trailer parks and dispossessed suburbs and pool halls and conve nience stores. We watch the dawn in more than one state, and we get the sense of the life on the road in a way that is both modern (highways, traffic signals) and timeless (the oneness of the land and the journey). And although I have made this all sound important and mystical, "Powwow Highway" is at heart a comedy, and even a bit of a thriller, although the way they spring Buddy's sister from prison belongs to the comedy and not the thriller.

The movie is based on a novel by David Seals , which I have not read; the story resembles the tone in some of W. P. Kinsella's stories about North American Indians. In Buddy it shows the somewhat fading anger of a man who once was a firebrand in the American Indian Movement (he has a concise, bitter speech about the programs "for" the Indians that will be an education for some viewers). In Philbert it finds a supplement to that anger in a man whose sheer, unshakable serenity is a political statement of its own.

One of the reasons we go to movies is to meet people we have not met before. It will be a long time before I forget Farmer, who disappears into the Philbert role so completely we almost think he is this simple, openhearted man - until we learn he's an actor and teacher from near Toronto. It's one of the most wholly convincing performances I've seen.

Most of the people who go to see "Powwow Highway" will already have seen " Rain Man ," the box-office best seller. Will they notice how similar the movies are in structure? Philbert does not have any sort of mental handicap, as the man with autism does in "Rain Man," but he has a similar, absolutely direct simplicity. Both characters state facts.

They catalog the obvious. Deep beneath the simplicity of Philbert's statements is a serene profundity (we cannot be quite sure what lies at the bottom of the autistic's statements). In both movies the other man - younger, ambitious, impatient - learns from the older. Meanwhile, in both movies, the men become friends while they drive in ancient Buicks down the limitless highways of America.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Powwow Highway (1989)

A Martinez as Buddy Red Bow

Gary Farmer as Philbert Bono

Amanda Wyss as Rabbit Layton

Joanelle Romero as Bonnie Red Bow

Directed by

• Jonathan Wacks

Produced by

• Jan Wieringa

Screenplay by

• Janet Heaney
• Jean Stawarz

Photographed by

• Toyomichi Kurita
• James Stewart
• Barry Goldberg

Based On The Novel by

• David Seals

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Review/Film; A Cheyenne Mystic Who Transmutes Bitterness

By Janet Maslin

• March 24, 1989

The scene-stealing figure in ''Powwow Highway,'' a road movie populated by Cheyenne Indian characters in the vicinity of Lame Deer, Mont., is a sweetly mystical giant named Philbert Bono (Gary Farmer). Philbert is notable for his tremendous appetite, his unflappably even keel, and his determination to find some kind of spiritual core in contemporary American Indian life. When Philbert sees a salesman on television wearing a headdress to hawk used cars (offering ''heap big savings''), he is too serene to take offense. Instead, he buys a car from this man and decides to think of it as a war pony.

''Powwow Highway,'' which was directed by Jonathan Wacks and opens today at the 57th Street Playhouse, teams Philbert with a more serious and conventional crony, an angry Vietnam veteran named Buddy Red Bow (A. Martinez), for a weeklong journey. Nominally traveling to the aid of Buddy's sister Bonnie, who has been arrested on a trumped-up drug charge that seems related to Buddy's activism in Indian affairs, these two old friends cover a landscape of present-day disappointment and long-lost glory.

Buddy's bitterness is unrelenting, but in the end he is greatly affected by Philbert's generosity of spirit. It is Philbert, guided by visions and always in search of some link to the past, who is finally able to defuse some of Buddy's rage.

''Powwow Highway'' aims for a lightly comic tone at times, particularly since Philbert is himself such an appealingly humorous figure. Mr. Farmer's performance here, skillful yet entirely unmannered, is a great help in creating gently unforced humor, as in the sequence that has Buddy ordering an expensive car radio for Philbert's new jalopy, then flying into a rage when the thing doesn't work; while Buddy smashes plate-glass windows in the radio store, Philbert calmly sits in the car and adjusts the knobs until the radio becomes functional, wearing a beatific smile as he works. But Mr. Wacks's direction seldom gives such sequences much sharpness or wit. Most of the film simply ambles along at a genial pace, awaiting the insights that occasionally arise out of Buddy and Philbert's adventures.

''Powwow Highway'' has been crisply photographed by Toyomichi Kurita and includes some sadly affecting glimpses of life among American Indians who have lost touch with their past. The ramshackle houses on the reservation, the empty rituals (''You'd think a few lousy beads and some feathers was a culture or something!'' one character angrily declares) and the children who don't even know the name of their mother's tribe all attest to the sources of Buddy and Philbert's unease. SEEKING A CONNECTION TO LONG-LOST GLORY - POWWOW HIGHWAY, directed by Jonathan Wacks; screenplay by Janet Heaney and Jean Stawarz, based on the novel by David Seals; director of photography, Toyomichi Kurita; edited by James Stewart; music by Barry Goldberg; production designer, Cynthia Sowder; produced by Jan Wieringa; released by Handmade Films. At the 57th Street Playhouse, at Avenue of the Americas. Running time: 91 minutes. This film is rated R. Buddy Red Bow...A. Martinez Philbert Bono...Gary Farmer Rabbit Layton...Amanda Wyss Bonnie Red Bow...Joanelle Romero

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

Powwow Highway

• Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa Fe. On the way, they begin to reconnect to their spiritual heritage.
• Cheerful Philbert embarks on a spiritual quest by bartering for a car in Lame Deer (Montana). Jaded activist Buddy asks for a ride to Santa Fe, New Mexico to help his sister Bonnie, who's been arrested on trumped up charges. The trip weaving reality and vision detours with vignettes of Native realities and ends with a collision of cultures, corporate, and federal interests. Based on the David Seals book. — JAB
• Depicts the struggles of reservation-dwelling Native Americans in the North Central United States. The main character is an introspective and lovable person in a process of seeking pride and identity through traditional and mystical means of gathering power. His high school friend, who is a Vietnam War Veteran, is exerting power as a highly principled social activist, using a modern rational materialist adversarial model of progress. — Stan Detering <[email protected]>
• Buddy Red Bow is struggling, in the face of persecution, by greedy developers and political in-fighting, to keep his nation on a Montana Cheyenne Reservation financially solvent and independent. Philbert, a simple-minded friend of Buddy's, ardently pursues Native American/First Nation wisdom and lore wherever he can find it--even on Bonanza--in order to earn his warrior name. He's even got his war pony, Protector: a beat-up old wreck of a car. Buddy's sister has been arrested in Santa Fe, and together Buddy and Philbert set off on a road trip to look after her kids and go bail her out. However, Bonnie's arrest has something strange about it as her friend Rabbit points out. As the miles roll by, Philbert's faith challenges Buddy's hard-edged view of the world (and occasional bout of reckless violence), and together they face the realities and dreams of being Cheyenne in the modern-day US as they fight to free Bonnie and her children and elude the Feds. — Kathy Li
• Buddy and Filbert leave the Reservation to take a road trip across the badlands of the American Midwest to save Buddy's sister from unjust imprisonment. On the way, they encounter truth, love, magic, and healing. Not mentioned in other synopses, but this movie is FUNNY. The journey across Badlands backroads also traverses the emotional territories of comedy, tragedy, and existential mystery. ~~~~~ Powwow Highway is a Native American cult classic. "For the Northern Cheyenne tribe of Lame Deer, Montana, the American Dream has taken a grim detour. Here, Buddy Redbow is a committed activist battling a suspicious land-grab. Philbert Bono is a serene spiritual warrior guided by sacred visions. But when Buddy's estranged sister, Bonny Redbow, is framed and jailed in New Mexico, the two men take Philbert's rust-wrecked '64 Buick 'war pony' on a road trip that makes some very unexpected stops along the way." It's a realistic, sometimes surrealistic view of the times for not only the Northern Cheyenne, but for most tribes in America. From third world living conditions to ill treatment by authorities and the general public. Against this background is the story of two Cheyenne men on very different paths, one spiritual, one materialistic, who end up on a road to save one of their own from wrongful imprisonment. Along the way they come to a greater understanding of each other and themselves, to heal old wounds and renew faith in their past as well as their future.

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Powwow highway.

Directed by Jonathan Wacks

Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa Fe. On the way, they begin to reconnect to their spiritual heritage.

A Martinez Gary Farmer Joanelle Romero Amanda Wyss Sam Vlahos Wayne Waterman Margot Kane Geoffrey Rivas Roscoe Born John Trudell Graham Greene Wes Studi Rodney A. Grant

Director Director

Jonathan Wacks

Producers Producers

Jan Wieringa Carl Kraines

Writers Writers

Janet Heaney Jean Stawarz

Original Writer Original Writer

David Seals

Casting Casting

Junie Lowry-Johnson

Editor Editor

Jim Stewart

Cinematography Cinematography

Toyomichi Kurita

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

George Harrison Denis O'Brien

Production Design Production Design

Cynthia Sowder

Art Direction Art Direction

Set decoration set decoration.

Celeste Lee

Stunts Stunts

Russell Towery

Composer Composer

Barry Goldberg

Costume Design Costume Design

Isis Mussenden

Handmade Films

Alternative Titles

Zwei Cheyenne auf dem Highway, Pow Wow Highway, Uma Estrada Sem Limites, Oltre la riserva, Az ősök földjén, 印第安高速路

Drama Comedy

Releases by Date

24 feb 1989, 11 may 1990, releases by country.

91 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by ~findlay ★★★★

////// R E C O N N E X I O N

this is super pleasant and charming and delightful. Im a sucker for road movies, but one filled with non-exploitative Cheyenne faith, Dakotan highways, snowcaps, knee-high river chants, busted old cars, small town stop-bys and jailbreaks? count me in. BUT SET AT CHRISTMAS? hellOooOooOoo.

I was reminded of Roadside Prophets while watching this because RP tried to mystify the road and loosely dangle cliched bored american road heroics over its casts head, failing HARD to make it genuine.

Powwow Highway works. The dream of native movement, preservation of beliefs, the idea of putting mythology in a car and making its spirit a horse (!) blends well with the characters quest for freedom, spiritual reconnexion and "tokens". Its a hearty thing and realigns road mythology with who the roads really belong to: the natives.

all about reconnexion baby!

Review by ✨Angelica Jade Bastién🔮 ★★★★★

New piece dropping on Vulture soon.

Review by Lebowskidoo 🇨🇦 🎬 🍿 ★★★★

"I think your car ate the godamned caramel corn!"

Fun road movie, nothing overly original other than being about two native guys. One is on a spiritual journey, the other is on a personal mission. They clash, sometimes funny, sometimes poignant.

The film debut of Wes Studi.

Review by JulesLarson ★★★★½

This rules. Total underseen classic that has blown me away. It doesn't reinvent so much as adapt genre tropes in really clever ways. Late 80's Cheyenne buddy-road movie, instigated by the agenda of both a corporate developer and the feds, who frame radical Buddy Red Bow's sister, which forces Red Bow to head to Santa Fe and off the reservation before the council casts their vote on a mining license renewal. There are so many casual and careful details that are astounding throughout. Like Red Bow passing by Mount Rushmore, where he says nothing to educate the viewer on what he's feeling and just sighs out, witnessing in person for the first time the desecration of the Lakota's Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe.…

Review by pirateneckbeard ★★★

This doesn't have much of a story but more of two characters coming at different angles at there culture to find somewhat of a resolve. I think it's strength is the journey (as most road trips are) but does lack a lot of connective elements but has plot points. The soundtrack was rather a strong part of the film but the ending kinda just finishes with no great symbolism. I think the acting by the main two leads was really good and enjoyed it but maybe I felt it was going for a payoff or a shocker blowout but still a good film.

Review by Lazyboots ★★★★

Producing this movie is yet another one of the many reasons why George is the best Beatle 🤞

Absolutely blown away by this film. More soon.

Review by alexes!! ★★★★

Fun movie, talks about rejection of own culture in the face of assimilation super well

Review by Johnny B. Goodfornothin ★★★½

This is one of the movies on the grandpa tapes that i have never seen before, and I've got to say I really enjoyed it. It's an indie film, a Native American film, it's a road movie, it's a drama, it's a comedy; Pow Wow Highway is alot of things rolled into one movie that actually all work.

A Martinez is Buddy Red Bow, a Vietnam veteran turned political activist living on a Cheyenne reservation who's fighting off greedy developers intent on exploiting the land for it's resources for their benefit while the reservation occupants remain below the poverty line. Red Bow is so much of a thorn in their side that the feds unjustly arrest his estranged sister to…

Review by yrlilcore ★★★★ 2

PLOT: «we are Cheyenne. all the shit of the world can’t change that.»

REVIEW: colonialism isn’t historic, it’s ongoing. the issues being addressed in this film are all present in some form post-contact and continue today: Indigenous sovereignty and resistance, colonial violence, attempted genocide, racism and natural resource extraction.

gary farmer plays philbert bono / whirlwind dreamer, a sweet good natured quiet man reconnecting with his culture. he is seeking tsé-tsêhéstâhese / the like hearted people, the awakening of the clear blue river straight ahead into sunrise; to be a warrior, to seek sacred knowledge, to offer gifts to ancestors, to gain medicine that protects from all harm.

along the way he is paired with his childhood friend buddy red…

Review by cineurbe

There's a golden and symbolic de-indoctrinating moment for the old beat up Ford, Philbert (Gary Farmer) just traded, when he yanks a white Virgin Mary from its dashboard, where he would prolly rather have it replaced with the prophet "Whitecloud" "Powwow Highway" becomes, an amusing, reckless and reflective road trip to the reaffirmation of whose land its actually been travelled on, where simple wisdom of "knowing tribe, is knowing self" and in more telling cases like Buddy's native resistance (A. Martinez) that your red color doesn't simply wash off to compromise. Its all in the midst of tribal business and one hellavu pony-anchored jailbreak, that a warrior's journey searching for signs and its token for self realization, comes to a temporary close, and where Philbert's pony after all its trying galloping, and only after completing its freedom trail, as it goes up in flames, finally its spiritual and practical mission comes to a proud end.

Review by Jim Morrow ★★★★½

Unfortunately, this made it to theaters about the same time that Handmade Films was beginning to circle the drain. You had to look hard to find this in 1989, but it was certainly worth the trouble. Both A Martinez and Gary Farmer give memorable performances as Buddy Red Bow and Philbert Bono. Supporting work is also excellent, but Farmer really stands out, and the film revolves around his quest to become Whirlwind Dreamer, a Cheyanne warrior. This combines road trip and buddy movie as Philbert marks a journey to Santa Fe to get Buddy's sister out of jail by spiritual places and talismans to lead him on his quest. This may have been the first, or one of the first…

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Powwow Highway

Time out says, release details.

• Duration: 91 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: Jonathan Wacks
• Screenwriter: Janet Heaney, Jean Stawarz
• Gary Farmer
• Joanelle Nadine Romero
• Geoff Rivas
• Roscoe Born
• Wayne Waterman

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Powwow Highway

Where to Watch

Gary Farmer (Philbert Bono) A Martinez (Buddy Red Bow) Joanelle Romero (Bonnie Red Bow) Amanda Wyss (Rabbit Layton) Sam Vlahos (Chief Joseph) Wayne Waterman (Wolf Tooth) Margot Kane (Imogene) Geoffrey Rivas (Sandy Youngblood) Roscoe Born (Agent Jack Novall) John Trudell (Louie Short Hair)

Jonathan Wacks

Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa Fe. On the way, they begin to reconnect to their spiritual heritage.

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Powwow Highway Reviews

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MOVIE REVIEW : Comic Quest on ‘Powwow Highway’

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Very rarely, an actor’s presence casts a shadow almost larger than the production that shelters him--or her. You saw it with Chief Dan George in “Little Big Man.” With Louise Fletcher in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” And you’ll discover it again in “Powwow Highway,” (AMC Century 14), a little zinger of a comedy with a rare backbone of intelligence; unsurprising when you learn that the debuting director is “Repo Man” co-producer, Jonathan Wacks.

As it follows the careening path of a pair of buddies, heading on a rescue mission with diametrically different ideas of how to get there--and how quickly--it’s a pretty irresistible movie. But for pure lovability, it’s given a run for its money by the amazing young Canadian actor it presents, Gary Farmer, who co-stars with A Martinez.

Farmer plays Philbert Bono, a gentle, mammoth Cheyenne from Lame Deer, Mont., who gets it into his head to follow the spiritual path. It’s harder to find that path now than it was in simpler times. Now your pony is a junkyard Buick Wildcat, circa 1964, and the Old Ones, who could answer questions about the way of a warrior, are fed up with being sages and would rather let television play across their faces, undisturbed.

But there is never a doubt that Philbert, a more-than-6 foot, 280-pound seeker, will make it to warriorhood. For one thing, who could stop him? For another, who would want to? Pure goodness emanates from Farmer’s Philbert--a kind of sweetness that an audience reads instantly. The only time in recent movie memory that I can recall such sweetness returned in equal waves of affection toward a character was the furor that greeted E.T. . . . and Farmer as is far from mechanical as you can be.

“Powwow Highway” quietly camouflages its serious concerns about American Indians, letting us absorb them cumulatively during this pell-mell odyssey. Disillusioned activist Buddy Red Bow (Martinez) and Philbert Bono trek together from Montana to Santa Fe, in the car Philbert has named “Protector.” Buddy has gotten a desperate call from his estranged sister, Bonnie (Joanelle Romero). She’s apparently been framed, then jailed with her two young daughters, in Santa Fe for possession for marijuana.

The men were at high school together, but Buddy’s intense political concerns and Philbert’s lifelong low-key flair have kept their paths separate. Apparently, his work has kept Buddy out of touch with his family too, since his sister’s phone call is the first news he’d had that he’s an uncle. Twice.

Wack’s direction of the screenplay, by Janet Heaney and Jean Stawarz, from the novel by David Seals, has a way of conveying hard facts obliquely but surely. As Toyomichi Kurita’s eloquent camera sweeps the mean, littered face of the Northern Cheyenne reservation, even the dog seems to be limping. “Powwow Highway” is full of such snapshots and panoramas, mute instruction for those who will see.

The film’s inspired comedy comes as Buddy’s unvented fury collides with Philbert’s quiet imperturbability. Philbert meanders, Buddy makes tracks; Philbert has spiritual stops to make on the way, Buddy may explode before he makes them all. It’s the set-up for every road comedy worth its octane, from “It Happened One Night” to “Midnight Run,” and already we know that the qualities of each man will rub off on the other.

One of Philbert’s most important stops is the yearly powwow at Billings, Mont., an event Buddy sneers at. Indoors, in a gym , to him it’s a joke: “As though a few lousy beads was a culture or something.” Yet there’s an exchange here with a damaged Indian Vietnam vet, and the pull of the dancing itself that begins to speak to Buddy. (A beautiful moment by Martinez, this is one of the scenes that needs to play out longer, to really build and soar, and either Wacks or the independently made film’s budget held back at this point.)

Meanwhile, in Santa Fe, Bonnie’s self-reliant girls have found a way out of their detention home at the same time a feisty, lifelong friend Rabbit Layton (Amanda Wyss) arrives to make bail for Bonnie. The boys arrive at about the same time, only to run up against the bossy belligerence of the Santa Fe policewomen. It’s what makes Philbert’s solution to all their problems--and his cherubic deadpan as he goes about it--all the more satisfactory.

But it’s not amiable mix of characters at the end nor even the deeply satisfying action that fixes “Powwow Highway” (MPAA-rated R) permanently in our affections, although it has the sort of ending that makes kids at matinees split nearby eardrums with their delight.

It’s the sight of Philbert, leaving a token sacred to him at a sacred spot, or, the real power of Philbert, the storyteller, or best of all, Philbert at the break of dawn, the film’s most awesome memory.

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Saturday, October 7, 2017

Powwow highway, a film review.

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Powwow Highway

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Powwow Highway

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Powwow Highway streaming: where to watch online?

Currently you are able to watch "Powwow Highway" streaming on Criterion Channel.

Two Northern Cheyenne men take a road trip from Montana to New Mexico to bail out the sister of one of them who has been framed and arrested in Santa Fe. On the way, they begin to reconnect to their spiritual heritage.

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