Where to watch Convoy
1 Star
While driving through the Arizona desert, Albuquerque based independent trucker Martin Penwald – who goes by the handle “Rubber Duck” – along with his fellow truckers “Pig Pen” and “Spider Mike”, are entrapped by unscrupulous Sheriff Lyle “Cottonmouth” Wallace using a key tool of the trucker’s trade, the citizens’ band (CB) radio. Rubber Duck and Cottonmouth have a long, antagonistic history. When this encounter later escalates into a more physical one as Cottonmouth threatens Spider Mike, a man who just wants to get home to his pregnant wife, Rubber Duck and other the truckers involved, including Spider Mike, Pig Pen and “Widow Woman”, go on the run, figuring the best thing to do being to head to New Mexico to avoid prosecution. Along for the ride is Melissa, a beautiful photographer who just wanted a ride to the airport. As news of what happened spreads over the CB airwaves, other truckers join their convoy as a show of support. Cottonmouth rallies other law enforcement officers throughout the southwest, they who soon learn that stopping Rubber 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. As the standoff escalates, New Mexico Governor Jerry Haskins joins the fray, he who sees the strong public support for the truckers being something on which he can capitalize politically.
Convoy, which was directly inspired by the out-of-nowhere success of Smokey and the Bandit released the year prior, has a series of opening shots and a title sequence that showcases the open highways and the massive trucking rigs that roam them with an almost mythical reverence, and it totally works. In the film’s first ten minutes, I thought this was what Smokey lacked: a real director making an actual movie. The problem is that after that, the movie absolutely falls apart when it reveals itself as a rebel-rousing anti-authority picture. The lighthearted tone and comedic moments that made Reynolds and his Smokey movie an audience favorite are notably absent in Convoy, which is way too serious for its own good.
If there was ever a movie that was tailor-made for the drive-inn movie experience, it’s Convoy. This low-brow, slow-moving film is incredibly simple in it’s plotting and unremarkable in it’s execution. During my film school years, I encountered an instructor who harbored a love for Peckinpah, specifically The Wild Bunch, and his enthusiasm gave me a certain reverence for the often-heralded filmmaker. But in the years since, I’ve explored more of Pechinpah’s work, and the majority of it is, quite frankly, shit. Kris Kristofferson and Ali McGraw are at their sexiest; each spends most of the movie with exposed torsos, and it’s a minor pleasure to see Borgine reunite with his Wild Bunch director. Convoy is as monotonous as driving on a long stretch of country road late at night.
Directed by: Sam Peckinpah
Written by: Bill Norton, Chip Davis, Bill Fries
Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine