Convoy

One of the benefits of the gloomy winter afternoons and the dark evenings, is the chance to actually get around to watching all of the dvds that I bought on impulse over the summer.

The Sunday matinee yesterday was Convoy, the archetypal trucking movie based on the novelty country & western song by CW McColl. The plot, such as it is, concerns the misadventures of a roguish trucker by the name of Rubber Duck, played by Kris Kristofferson at his twinkly blue eyed and bare chested best, who has a run in with a corrupt Sheriff and finds himself at the head of an impromptu and rapidly growing convoy of trucks making a break for the border. There are a couple of subplots with a feisty photographer played by Ali McGraw tagging along, and a black trucker being brutalised by racist cops, but the movie is really just an excuse for director Sam Peckinpah to film lots of big rigs in the Arizona and New Mexico badlands kicking up dust, smashing up cars, driving into, through and over anything else on the road and finally exploding in glorious slo-mo. It was a clear influence on one of my all time favourite video games, namely Interstate 76, and I will admit to a sneaking fondness for the original song, so this movie really went down a treat.

Ten-Four good buddy!