Black Dog

Ex-con Jack Crews is offered an one-time job to drive a truck dross-country and deliver it's load of stolen guns on time. Despite having lost his licence he takes the job for the money. However once he starts his trip with an escort he finds that the original holder of the guns is trying to not only get paid for the weapons but also steal the load back. Crews finds himself trying to avoid police and criminals alike to get the job done.

Who said they don't make Smokey and the Bandit movies anymore?! This mixes both elements of those movies with modern thriller strands. The plot is therefore pretty mixed. It starts out ignoring the fact that Crews is carrying illegal weapons and ignores the moral issues this may throw up regarding the film painting him as a good man, it then focuses on big truck action with plenty of cars, trucks, jeeps blowing up and skidding all round the place. The second half keeps some of this action but it realises that it needs to end with Crews being a good guy and suddenly the guns issue is brought up and it looks for a "happy" thriller style end. The plot is quite unlikely - Why did Red suddenly seem happy to steal this load - he'd never done it before, and the "twists" aren't exactly a surprise. The action is distracting for the most part - but overblown spectacle doesn't replace genuine excitement, and, as Burt Reynolds discovered, how many times can you watch a truck crash before it gets old.

The performances are not great. Swayze is poor and just has a pained expression on his face throughout. Meat Loaf is a not so much a meatloaf as he is a huge glazed ham - he overacts and looks bugeyed like he was in one of his videos. Charles Dutton and Stephen Tobolowsky aren't great but their odd-couple interplay at least makes them interesting. The rest of the cast are familiar faces (Randy Travis, Gabriel Casseus etc) but don't really have very much to do.

Overall it's quite enjoyable because the action scenes are quite good. The story is daft and the actors don't have much to do but the sheer spectacle of it covers the whole for most of the film. Almost. The final five minutes is dumb and typical of the film's sense of spectacle over substance.

You get plenty bang for your buck in the on-the-road action joint "Black Dog". Ex-con Jack Crews unwillingly agrees to drive a semi-trailer loaded with illegal weapons from Georgia to New Jersey in order to save his family. While it might be a one-idea action fling, it's got enough gusto and energy making it predictably routine, but still rousing Mack truck ride packed with smashing stunt work that's nothing short than spectacular. Total destruction follows. It's dangerous and it shows (look at the chase through the hills), as the imagery is important due to its simplicity. The script is thick with drama, but this never takes away from the thrills or the build of them. Even though the ending was overly cheery for my liking. Patrick Swayze emit's a natural coolness to his laid-back ex-con character that sure knows how to handle a rig. Then chuck in the villains (hit-men, bikers and FBI) who hound Swayze, where you have the larger-than-life Meat Loaf and the usual twists and turns. Distinguishable, but competently done and very exciting as we get the screeching guitar riffs to remind us that.

"That son of a b!tch can drive"

The movie talks upon an ex-con named Jack(Patrick Swayze), he's working as mechanic in New Jersey, the bank is about to evict his house and he has no other choice taking a job for Red(Meat Loaf), driving a large truck in a long ride cross county, all the way from Atlanta . The truck is filled with illegal arms and he must to fight for saving his spouse(Brenda Strong) and daughter. Meanwhile the ATF and Feds (Stephen Tobolowski, Charles S Dutton, Lorraine Toussaint)are after from him.

The motion picture packs noisy action, race trucks, exciting thriller and is quite amusing, furthermore contains an eerie twist plot with the legend of apparition an ominous black dog. It's entertaining because from the beginning to the end the action packed and suspense is nonstop. Patrick Swayze( unforgettable in Dirty dancing) as a two-fisted action man saving his family is cool though a little wizened.Colorful cinematography and catching musical score by George S Clinton. The picture is professionally directed by Kevin Hooks( son of actor Robert Hooks).He's an action movies expert (Passenger 57 , Fled, among others), though he usually works for television , filming known and famous series( Prison break, 24, Lost, Cold case, NYPD Blue..). Rating : Acceptable and passable and it will like to action movies buffs and Patrick Swayze fans.

This, although not entirely intended to be that funny, is one of the most humorous films I've ever seen. Wes's constant pleading to visit the jon, Red's quoting of Bible verses, and Earl's horrible singing all intertwine into a story originally intended to be very serious. However, the great acting of Randy Travis and Meat Loaf give the viewer a pleasant and hilarious surprise. The car chase scene is wonderfully made as is a crafty semi truck rampage up a steep hill and along jagged cliffs. A unique blend of good and bad acting along with good scenes and bad scenes make Black Dog one of the best "bad" movies you'll ever see.

For the genre movie that this is, it's a pretty enjoyable movie to watch. It's definitely no worse or better than any other similar simple straight-forward action flick from the '90's.

Of course the movie is suffering from more than 1 problem though. One obviously is its story. It's simple and actually doesn't make a lot of sense and is a real unlikely one. I mean, why did Red ever let the truck drive off from his place, only to dangerously attempt to hijack it later, on the very same day. But oh well, without this story we wouldn't had all those exploding trucks and action scenes within this movie.

Well, it's not like the action is much spectacular though. Funny enough there are lots of exploding trucks and cars but they already seem to blow up when one of the passengers farts. Action-wise this movie just isn't good or spectacular enough to watch.

Another problem with the movie is that it has far too many villains in it. It's like the main characters against the rest of the world. The movie also doesn't seem to be able to make a choice who to make the main and most important villain of the movie, with as a result that all of the villainous characters aren't really anything memorable or evil enough, since the movie spends to much time on showing the many different villainous characters of the movie.

The movie is from the period when Patrick Swayze's career of course already was more or less on a death end. Nevertheless he's always good and serious with every role that he plays. He's also credible in this role, despite his already showing age. He was perhaps a tad bit too old at the time of this movie to play the main lead in an action movie. Meat Loaf mostly seemed to have had fun with playing his role, which shows on the screen. But like I said before, since he plays a villain, he didn't get the screen time he deserved. There are parts in the movie were he completely disappears, only to show up 20 minutes later again.

But despite this all, the movie is good and entertaining enough to watch. It's current rating on here would suggest that this is one of the worst action flicks of the '90's but it hardly is. It's also no better than some action flicks but also definitely no worse than some others.

6/10

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