Truckers, led by Rubber Duck are fed up of being harassed by vindictive traffic cop Lyle Wallace. After a fight breaks out between the truckers and the police {started by Wallace's bullying tactics} the truckers flee towards New Mexico. What starts out as a few trucks turns into a giant convoy and soon the chase becomes a media event and a political tool for votes.
Based on the country song of same title by C.W. McCall, and directed by Sam Peckinpah, Convoy became, surprisingly to most in the industry, a hugely popular film. Containing no plot of any substance, it does however have an enormous sense of fun and features some nice Peckinpah flourishes. Huge trucks tearing across the landscape surprisingly makes for easy on the eye cinema, dust tracks framed in poetic style, slow motion car crashes and, erm, chickens falling from a coop, in fact lots of crash bang and wallop to entertain. Outside of that, what heart there is in the piece is to be found in the free spirited nature of our truckers, especially Rubber Duck who becomes something of a hero to anyone who uses the road. Kris Kristofferson plays Rubber Duck and it's a great bit of casting, Ernest Borgnine suitably steps into Sheriff Wallace's big trousers and Burt Young is dead on entertaining as Pig Pen. Sadly this is yet another film that proves Ali MacGraw just couldn't act, tho in her defence here the character Melissa, is poor and totally pointless.
Convoy is the sort of film that i personally understand if folk hate it and think it has no merits whatsoever, but much like Smokey And The Bandit from the previous year, vehicles going fast and creating mayhem makes for a whole lot of fun to be taken with a pinch of cheek. 7/10
Based on the country song of same title by C.W. McCall, and directed by Sam Peckinpah, Convoy became, surprisingly to most in the industry, a hugely popular film. Containing no plot of any substance, it does however have an enormous sense of fun and features some nice Peckinpah flourishes. Huge trucks tearing across the landscape surprisingly makes for easy on the eye cinema, dust tracks framed in poetic style, slow motion car crashes and, erm, chickens falling from a coop, in fact lots of crash bang and wallop to entertain. Outside of that, what heart there is in the piece is to be found in the free spirited nature of our truckers, especially Rubber Duck who becomes something of a hero to anyone who uses the road. Kris Kristofferson plays Rubber Duck and it's a great bit of casting, Ernest Borgnine suitably steps into Sheriff Wallace's big trousers and Burt Young is dead on entertaining as Pig Pen. Sadly this is yet another film that proves Ali MacGraw just couldn't act, tho in her defence here the character Melissa, is poor and totally pointless.
Convoy is the sort of film that i personally understand if folk hate it and think it has no merits whatsoever, but much like Smokey And The Bandit from the previous year, vehicles going fast and creating mayhem makes for a whole lot of fun to be taken with a pinch of cheek. 7/10