Movie Review: Convoy (1978)

Genre: Anti-Authoritarian Action Comedy  

Director: Sam Peckinpah  

Starring: Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw, Ernest Borgnine, Burt Young  

Running Time: 111 minutes  

Synopsis: On the open highways of Arizona, trucker Martin "Rubber Duck" Penwald (Kris Kristofferson) tangles with photographer Melissa (Ali MacGraw) in her speedy convertible. At a truck stop she sells the car and becomes his passenger. When corrupt Sheriff Lyle Wallace (Ernest Borgnine) shakes down Rubber Duck and his trucker friends "Pig Pen" (Burt Young) and "Spider" Mike (Franklyn Ajaye), a brawl ensues. The truckers flee and motor into New Mexico, where they are joined by many other disgruntled truck drivers. The convoy becomes a public spectacle and political headache.

What Works Well: Freedom expressed as enjoyment of the open road is both nostalgic and poetic, and the kinetic visual imagery of massive trucks roaring down the highway under gorgeous skies is impressive. Cinematographer Harry Stradling Jr. also excels in capturing countless stunts involving crashing police cars and overturning trucks. The movie was inspired by the fun 1975 C.W. McCall song of the same name.

What Does Not Work As Well: There is no plot to speak of, and no meaningful characters beyond cartoon cut-outs (Ernest Borgnine suffering most from peak buffoonery). The script generally consists of CB radio chatter, and the movie invests in exactly one scene to spell out - straight to the camera - a cacophony of grievances (high gas prices, low speed limits, corrupt law enforcement, the Vietnam War, Nixon, Rockfeller). The final act steps into the ridiculous, bringing in heavy weaponry and big explosions for the sake of spectacle.

Key Quote:

Melissa (referring to the huge convoy of trucks behind Rubber Duck): But they're all following you.

Rubber Duck: No, they ain't. I'm just in front of them.

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Movie Review: The Killer Elite (1975)

Genre: Crime Thriller  

Director: Sam Peckinpah  

Starring: James Caan, Robert Duvall, Arthur Hill, Burt Young, Bo Hopkins, Mako, Gig Young  

Running Time: 122 minutes  

Synopsis: In San Francisco, Mike and George (James Caan and Robert Duvall) work for a CIA-affiliated private company providing protection for foreign political opposition leaders. George goes rogue, assassinating a client and badly wounding Mike but choosing not to kill him. Mike's bosses Collis and Weybourne (Arthur Hill and Gig Young) want him to retire, but after recuperating he is assigned to protect a Japanese leader (Mako). Assisted by his buddies Mac and Miller (Burt Young and Bo Hopkins), Mike's mission uncovers a malicious conspiracy and leads to renewed hostilities with George.

What Works Well: A quality cast elevates this uneven conspiracy thriller, combining two popular mid-1970's cinematic themes: shadowy government machinations and martial arts. James Caan and Robert Duvall ride out the clunky parts with aplomb, the script increasingly relying on sardonic humour as the final act approaches. The investment in Mike's recuperation ordeal is worthwhile, and the climax is well-staged within a unique mothball fleet setting.

What Does Not Work As Well: Other than a basic pursuit of greed to set everyone against everyone, the motivations of the master manipulators are next to incoherent. Director Sam Peckinpah suppresses his blooder tendencies, but the resulting action scenes are clunky, with the ninjas-against-guns confrontations played for laughs in an attempt to mask the mismatched idiocy.

Key Quote:

Mac: Damn it, Mike, you're so busy doin' their dirty work, you can't tell who the bad guys are!

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Movie Review: Rocky III (1982)

The third instalment in the franchise, Rocky III maintains the respectable quality of the series and finds a suitable new foe to juice up the boxing action.

Three years after dramatically winning the heavyweight boxing title, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) is living the privileged life with his wife Adrian (Talia Shire) and young son Robert, although brother-in-law Paulie (Burt Young) remains stuck in a self-pity rut. Having easily defended his title ten times, Rocky is now more focused on marketing his name through product sponsorships and charity events, including a chaotic bout against wrestling champion Thunderlips (Hulk Hogan).

With Rocky starting to consider retirement, hard-punching challenger Clubber Lang (Mr. T) works his way up the rankings and demands a shot at the title. Rocky's trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith), now in frail health, warns Rocky not to face Clubber and reveals that all Rocky's title challengers to date were handpicked to prolong Rocky's reign. With his ego bruised and confidence shaken, Rocky has to decide whether to rise to the challenge and prove his true worth in the ring. He finds help from an unexpected source: former rival and champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers).

With the first two chapters having concluded Rocky's underdog journey from washed-up hardhead to champion, the search for new challenges commences. Written and directed by Stallone and economically edited into 100 minutes, Rocky III finds a worthy villain in the trash talking, perpetually angry and snarling Clubber Lang, forever embedding Mr. T's limited but effective persona into the cultural landscape.

And as a soundtrack to Rocky's quest to rediscover his edge, the song Eye of the Tiger by the group Survivor somehow manages to be both extraordinarily irritating and incredibly catchy, it's muscular chords instantly recognizable and allowing the film series to now boast two indelible contributions to the history of cinematic music.

Rocky III moves the action into the ring three times, once against Thunderlips, where humour and pain meet, and twice much more seriously against Clubber. Instead of the prolonged multi-round epics of the first two movies, here all the bouts are brutally short, cramming intensity into a few unforgiving rounds. It's a jarring shift for the franchise, and Stallone the director deserves credit for delivering fierce drama in the two battles with Clubber.

The action is still Hollywoodized in the extreme, with an unending flurry of punches landing in seemingly every second of every round, but there is no doubting the pugilist thrills on display.

Outside the ring the film ambles along a now predictable path. With the characters and relationships well defined into an optimized formula, Rocky III goes looking for new angles and finds a sharp one in the emerging bond between Rocky and Apollo. The former foes turning into friends, with Apollo helping Rocky to rediscover his hunger and evolve his fighting style, peaks with another not-bad training montage.

Whether he knew it or not at this stage, in forging the bond between Rocky and Creed, Stallone the writer was creating the foundation for both the short and long-term legacies of the series.

Neither a knockout nor a dive, Rocky III wins on points.

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The Movies Of Burt Young

All movies starring Burt Young and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Across 110th Street (1972)

Chinatown (1974)

The Gambler (1974)

The Killer Elite (1975)

Rocky (1976)

Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)

Convoy (1978)

Rocky II (1979)

Rocky III (1982)

Once Upon A Time In America (1984)

Rocky IV (1985)

Betsy's Wedding (1990)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Rocky II (1979)

The first of many sequels to the surprise hit of 1976, Rocky II continues the story of slow but likeable boxer Rocky Balboa. The film is a polished character study with a rousing climactic fight, but the raw tenderness of the original is naturally missing.

The film starts exactly where the original ended, with unheralded boxer Rocky (Sylvester Stallone) losing a split decision to heavyweight world champion Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), but winning the public's heart and the love of girlfriend Adrian (Talia Shire). Post-fight Rocky retires, marries Adrian, and quick spends the little money that he earned. He does his best to find respectable employment, but not much works out for him, and he ends up back at the meat processing plant and then running trivial errands at the gym owned by his trainer Mickey (Burgess Meredith).

Apollo is embarrassed because the fight was much closer than it should have been, and starts a campaign to humiliate Rocky into accepting a rematch, vowing that this time he will win in short order. With his money and options running out Rocky reluctantly agrees to a second fight and starts training with Mickey, against the wishes of Adrian, who is now very pregnant. But without Adrian's support Rocky puts no real effort into training. When a health scare strikes the family, his attention is diverted further away from preparing for the fight, leaving him vulnerable to a potentially crushing defeat.

This time Sylvester Stallone writes, directs and stars, and all the gang from the original film is back, including Burt Young as Adrian's brother Paulie and Joe Spinell as Tony Gazzo, the friendly neighbourhood loan shark. The sequel is well-made, invests the time to build to its single fight, and allows the central character to grow and develop further as a person.

But Rocky II suffers somewhat from an egotistical undercurrent. Most of the film is about Rocky struggling to adjust to life outside the ring, and Stallone directs himself with a persistent whiff of humble smugness that gets tiresome. The performance is not the problem as much as the cutesiness of the character, as Rocky seems unable to do anything wrong, but the world around him conspires to turn a cold shoulder on the loveable lug and his equally sappy big dog. Moments of humour do help, and nevertheless it is difficult to dislike Rocky given his propensity for self-depreciation.

Once Apollo goads Rocky to commit to a rematch, the film switches to his lack of motivation due to Adrian's lack of support and then a long stint dealing with a medical emergency. This is by far the weakest part of the film, and although the attempt is laudable, Stallone is simply not ready to write, direct or star in dramatic scenes where emotions drive the plot. The whole segment comes across as childish, including Mickey screaming incessantly but uselessly at his boxer to shape up, and repetitive scenes of Rocky in a chapel waiting for divine intervention.

The climactic showdown kicks the energy level right back up to maximum levels. The rematch in the ring is more of a brawl than a recognizable boxing fight, both fighters throwing punches with wild abandon and ignoring anything that looks like defence or strategy. But it is also undoubtedly exciting, and Stallone finds a rousing ending to conclude the film on a high.

Just as Rocky the fighter deserved a rematch and a second shot at the title, Rocky Balboa the character deserved at least one sequel, and Rocky II is a decent enough effort. It was never going to carry the pathos of the original, but it progresses the story of an unlikely hero into the next phase of his career.

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