Convoy – Didn’t really want to start out my dumpster fires raging on a deceased legend but here goes. I’ve stated before on this site my love for Sam Peckinpah, a thoroughly American auteur with a penchant for cocaine and copious amounts of booze who gifted us films like Straw Dogs, The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid. On the flip side of that and forty years ago this week he released Convoy, a film that, in my opinion, is a shit show and only memorable for its theme song. The documented truth behind making this film was that Peckinpah was using heavy amounts of cocaine, Quaaludes and vitamin shots that left him both irritable and irrational, resulting in no sort of studio control whatsoever. He even, at one point, said that Steve McQueen and the Executive Car Leasing company were conspiring to kill him. Although this is the highest grossing film of his career, I think this is the worst film he made in his storied career, including the one he didn’t fully finish before his death, The Osterman Weekend.
Hancock – Seeing the first trailers for this one when it came out ten years ago, I have to admit I was excited. Will Smith doing a superhero role but not one based on any existing comic book. Instead he was a surly drunk with superpowers who would save his people in distress but create massive amounts of property damage in the process. Sounds pretty solid on that synopsis but the film almost grinds to a halt by failing to go with its momentum and instead going down a far more complex route. The ending result is a muddled second act which leads to a wholly lackluster third one that had me clambering for the exit. If you had told me that I would enjoy Peter Berg’s previous movie The Kingdom MORE than this one I would have called you the filthiest of liars but, alas, here we are.
Steve Stebbing 