Australia's Best Movie Magazine

DVD reviews

The Help

"... it’s all so affecting because of the top-notch performances, which lend a spine to the sentimentality."

The Smurfs

"...the lacklustre performances and uninspiring script fail to engage viewers of any age."

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest: The Extended Cut

"...this final chapter remains almost deliberately over-talky, uneventful and drab..."

Ben Hur

"..a 4 hour melodramatic spectacle, but it’s still wonderful to watch."

search the site

Enter search term:

newsletter

Enter your email address below to receive the weekly Filmink newsletter

Enter search term:

Convoy (DVD)

by Jack Sargeant | September 02, 2010 12:41 | Edited September 02, 2010 14:52

While an interesting period piece, unfortunately this film doesn't take the genre anywhere new.

Following the titular convoy as it snakes through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, this  seventies curio casts Kris Kristofferson as Rubber Duck, a truck driving man who just wants to get on with his life, but who is forced by circumstance to become the unwilling leader to a disgruntled trucking community. The film is ostensibly a western that replaces the mythology of the cowboys with that of truckers, who emerge as the backbone of America: rugged individuals who buck the law but also do the right thing. The cast includes Ernest Borgnine as a malicious cop and Ali MacGraw as the love interest, with appearances from character actors such as Burt Young and Franklyn Ajaye. Convoy is an interesting period piece that sits alongside movies such as Smokey And The Bandit (1977) and even the 1979 TV show The Dukes Of Hazard, but doesn't take the genre anywhere new.

 

While not one of Sam Peckinpah's best movies (its portrait of macho truckers lacks the spectacle of masculine annihilation of The Wild Bunch or the nihilistic depth of Straw Dogs), there are still a few pleasures to be had from the scenes of trucks plowing through the vastness of the American South West. One for the curious.