Convoy (1978)

Next to last Sam Peckinpah film was legendary for the the stories of an out of control director. Allegedly his substance abuse got out of control and the budget doubled  to the then insane amount of 12 million dollars. While the film made almost 4 times that, making it Peckinpah's most successful film it also made many in Hollywood not trust him.

Looking like a meaner version of Smokey and the Bandit despite being based on a hit song, CONVOY is an uneasy mix of comedy and drama. the story has a bunch or truckers led by Kris Kristofferson running afoul of a totally evil sheriff played by Ernest Borgnine. Racist, violent and wanting to hurt the truckers (or anyone that isn't himself), Borgnine ends up trying to machine gun Kristofferson., He is a blood cousin of his character in EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE and had the studio not interfered I'm guessing he would have been even meaner.

That the film has become a cult classic and out of the public eye has to be due to the odd mix of tones in the film. Part Peckinpah nihilistic macho slugfest, part political manifesto and part comedy this film doesn't shift gears so much as grind them. That Peckinpah supposedly went off the deep end is understandable since I can't imagine anyone trying to balance the serious subjects that keep getting blunted by a jokes and remaining sane.

The end result is a really odd film. It feels not so much like a Peckinpah film so much as one struggling to be one. It's a film that seems light on the surface but leaves you with a taste of bile and ash. I have seen the film numerous times in the last 40 years and It always left me feeling odd since we really shouldn't be finding this all funny

Decidedly it's own thing CONVOY is a weird film. It's a film that wants to say a lot of dark things about machismo, freedom and politics, but at the same time it wants to be a goody comedy. I don't think it would ever worked, not in the way it's set up. I mean who the hell would hire the man who did THE WILD BUNCH, STRAW DOGS or BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA to make a film based on a top 10 pop hit. It boggles the mind, as does the resulting film.