Director Sam Peckinpah
Stars Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw & Ernest Borgnine
Rated M
Score 5/6
Truckers form a mile-long “convoy” in support of a trucker’s vendetta with an abusive sheriff – Based on the country song of the same title by C.W. McCall.
For those of you playing along at home, the song the movie was based was released in November of 1975 and became a number-one song on both the country and pop charts in the US and is listed 98th among Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time. it should also be noted that C. W. McCall is a character co-created and voiced by Bill Fries, along with Chip Davis. When i was reading about Convoy apparently it was released when the CB radio/trucking craze was at its peak in the United States, it was interesting to see that it was mentioned as examples of the types of movies released to take advantage of the craze in the same breath as Smokey and the Bandit considering how widely different the two movies are in their tones.Even with its darker tone Convoy still had some funnier moments especially in the final act of the movie.I loved the special brand of vehicular mayhem that was brought to Truckers Hell.
I enjoyed Ali McGraw’s performance and I thought that she was great opposite Kris Kristofferson. For some reason known only to the twisted depths of the back of my mind which was spurred on by the fact that I am very unfamiliar with McGraw’s work. I kept thinking that McGraw was Tyne Daly. I was a little surprised when I saw that Ernest Borgnine was cast as the sheriff. It has been more than a few years since I’ve last watched a movie featuring Borgnine and have memories of him in less villainous roles. I have to ask, are there any more movies out there where Borgnine is cast as the villain?