Le convoi

This film is a strange duck. One of the only two bona fide commercial hits for one of the most celebrated American directors of his era nevertheless pretty much killed Sam Peckinpah's career. What went wrong?

Some blame the basic concept, basing an entire movie on a three-year-old AM novelty hit. Like the song, it's a rambling tale about truckers ramming roadblocks and talking to each other on citizens-band radios. Kris Kristofferson as lead trucker Rubber Duck seems sheepish about the overall point, while Ali MacGraw as his love interest looks uncomfortable in a bad haircut.

"Convoy" isn't Shakespeare, but for the first 35 minutes it establishes an amiable tone and a colorful cast of supporting players. The jokes are hit-and-miss, but establish an enjoyable trucker camaraderie. Kristofferson's not much of an actor for me, but he's effective here working his gruff-but-kindly persona for what it's worth.

The early part of the film culminates in a fistfight in a roadstop diner. This sequence is well-shot and edited, belying the notion of Sam directing the entire film out of his skull on cocaine. A slow-motion shot of ketchup splattering over one combatant shows Bloody Sam had a sense of humor about his reputation. One cop seems impervious to fists and chairs alike, leaving Duck to marvel: "That ain't no cop, that's a mule wearing a uniform." You laugh because it's set up well.

But then the film moves to the Rubber Duck and his pals escaping the law, and with that ideas run out fast. The movie pushes its points, hazy as they are, with unbecoming directness. One cop introduces himself: "My name is Bob Bookman, sir, and I hate truckers." The Duck goes on some existential tangent about his growing band of followers, telling his pal Pig Pen (Burt Young) "Who the hell else they got?"

Much of the film focuses on Sheriff "Dirty" Lyle, overplayed by an uncommonly intense Ernest Borgnine, who chases the Duck because, well, he's the law and doesn't like backtalk from people he hits up for bribes. The story wanders into amnesty discussions between the Duck and an ambitious governor, with assorted points about grandstanding politicans hammered over and over.

In an out-of-nowhere dramatic shift, trucker Spider Mike (Franklin Ajaye) is beaten and stuck in jail in Texas, setting the stage for the Duck to break him out. The amiable comedy of the early film still lingers, but it's largely overwhelmed by this and other stabs at significance. By the end, the Duck has passed from myth to deity in a drawn-out finale with a lot of strained laughter. Here's an idea: It's a comedy when the audience is left laughing, not the actors on screen.

"Convoy" never sinks entirely; the visuals are cool and the supporting cast fun company. It just doesn't do enough with what it has. It's here I think Peckinpah failed the film, not working the script in a more engaging direction. He leans on stunts in place of story; after the fifteenth flipped cop car I started getting old "A-Team" flashbacks.

A lot of familiar faces from other Peckinpah films appear here, in both lead and supporting roles. Sam himself appears twice, as a boom operator in a camera car chasing the convoy and as a face on the T-shirt of Widow Woman (Madge Sinclair) that reads: "Uncle Sam Wants You".

Early in the film, Widow Woman sums up the spirit of "Convoy" when someone asks her if she wants to join them in their law-breaking adventure. "Why the hell not?" she replies. It's a line that worked when Ben Johnson said it in "The Wild Bunch". Here it is not so convincing. "Convoy" entertains, but it never convinces. For a Peckinpah movie, that isn't good enough.

A rebel trucker (Kris Kristofferson) leads protesting his colleagues on a trek throughout Southwest until Mexico .Other truckers join their convoy as a show of support against brutality and other complaints . Sheriff Wallace (Ernest Borgnine)rallies other law enforcement officers throughout the southwest, they who soon aware that stopping Duck, the face of the now highly public standoff, is not as easy as shooting him and the truck due to his highly explosive cargo . Truckers (Burt Young , Magde Sinclair as Widow woman, among others) on a tri-state protest over police brutality ,form a mile long "convoy" in support of Duck's vengeance with the abusive sheriff . Based on the country song , a real hit , of same title by C.W. McCall.

An enjoyable film , ¨ Peckinpah's Convoy ¨results to be an elegiac perspective at the world of the truckers . Taut excitement throughout, beautifully photographed and with spectacular trucks scenes and some images filmed in slow moving. An uneven and silly screenplay by Bill L Norton , subsequently turned to mediocre director . Vibrant and brilliant all star cast with acceptable performances from Burt Young , Seymour Cassel , Cassie Yates , among others. Kris Kristofferson turns in a nice acting as a drifting independent trucker nicknamed ¨Duck¨ who is searching freedom in a changing world , he and Ali MacGraw strike real sparks. Ernest Borgnine is particularly fine as the veteran patrolman .Peckinpah's slow-motion camera , his usual trademark,is put to particularly nice utilization shooting the balletic movement of fights , at once more splendidly and awe-inspiring than any gun battle. Furthermore, it contains a country music emotive score by Chip Davis . Glimmer and colorful cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr ,son of another great cameraman Harry Stradling Sr . Splendidly filmed in Albuquerque,Cerrillos, New Mexico,Cuba, New Mexico,Needles, California ,New Mexico State Fair Grounds ,Central & Louisanna Avenues, Albuquerque,White Sands National Monument, and Alamogordo, New Mexico. An agreeable country-trucker-Western with passable interpretations and exciting trucks footage including some slow-moving images and a much moving , professionally made by the famous director Sam Peckinpah . Sam was a real creator and author of masterpieces as ¨Cross of Iron¨,¨The ballad of Cable Hogue¨, ¨Wild bunch¨ , ¨Major Dundee¨ . ¨Convoy¨ though inferior film is lovely realized by Sam Peckinpah in his punchy directorial style .

I don't think this film is as bad as it's reputation suggests. I've seen a fair number of these kind of truckin'/car chase films from the late 70's, and I think it's a fairly average representation of the genre ... perhaps even a bit better than average given the presence of Kris Kristofferson, Ernest Borgnine and Burt Young. What's disappointing is that you expect Peckinpah to elevate anything he works on to something better than "average genre film" status, and he fails to do that. There are moments when you sense his presence ... a slow motion shot of big trucks hightailing it along a sandy back road achieves a certain poetic majesty ... but mostly you get the feeling that he simply didn't care about this film. It's a giant missed opportunity.

Convoy is the shallowest of Sam Peckinpah's films, but by no means the worst. It contains some oddball characters and a number of memorable sequences, and alternately funny and thought-provoking dialogue. It also features one of the very best Ernest Borgnine performances that I can remember - not bad for a man who won an Oscar for Marty!

The story traces the fortunes of some truckers, led by "Rubber Duck" (Kris Kristofferson), as they drive through the states of New Mexico, Texas and Arizona. They are pursued by the law, and gradually more and more truckers join on at the back of the line until they have literally hundreds of lorries, all roaring along the highways in protest of the prejudicial treatment they receive from the cops.

Kristofferson is supremely enigmatic as the leader of the pack. Ali MacGraw is a bit of a bore as his female companion. As mentioned before, the real star is Borgnine, mean and menacing, funny and cruel as the cop who dedicates his life to victimising truck drivers. For such a shallow film, it looks and sounds beautiful. Even the car chase through the sand is poetic. I can't explain what's good about this picture. It sounds dull and pointless, yet to watch it is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Convoy is a contradiction of itself.... plotless, pointless, thinly plotted, and yet still (somehow) a top notch film!

Sam Peckinpah's 'Convoy' works as, if nothing else, a little cultural/pop cultural archeology. Based on a novelty song that was itself a product of a short-lived CB (citizen's band) radio/trucker craze that swept the States in the mid 70s, it offers up a rather vivid slice of life from the days of malaise. It was one of several such films ('Smokey and the Bandit', 'Breaker! Breaker!', 'White Line Fever') trying to cash in, but this one is notable for the presence of Peckinpah behind the camera (though how much the struggling Peckinpah was actually behind said camera is apparently open to debate).

'Convoy' is a tough film to nail down. At times it veers into the dadgummit, cornpone comedy territory of Smokey and the Bandit, and at others it evokes a more traditional Peckinpah zeitgeist. Ironically, it probably works best when it straddles that line. At those times, 'Convoy' offers up a broadly entertaining action yarn, with colorful characters occupying simple, well defined turf. I wish Peckinpah and Co. had somehow been able to marry that more cohesively to his standard themes while leaving the broad yucks out of the equation.