Black Dog starts as just out on parole truck mechanic Jack Crews (Patrick Swayze) is called into the office by his boss Cutler (Graham Beckel), he tells Jack he's got a job for him to drive a truck from Atlanta to new Jersey & he'll get paid $10,000 for it. Jack isn't keen on the idea since he has no license & wants to stay out of trouble for his families sake, at home that night Jack finds a foreclosure letter hidden by his wife from the bank who are going to repossess his families house. Amazingly they owe the bank $9,000 so that $10,000 he was offered just hours before suddenly looks very tempting. Jack accepts the job but soon finds himself hauling a lorry of guns which are being tracked by the FBI & local redneck scumbag Red (Meat Loaf) wants to hijack the truck & steal them for himself, I guess Jack is just having one of those days...
Directed Kevin Hooks Black Dog is a cheesy but sort of fun action flick that could have been better but also could have been worse. The somewhat predictable script by William Mickelberry & Dan Vining doesn't take itself too seriously & feels like an extended version of the final climatic truck chase from Mad Max 2 (1981) in the sense Jack has to protect his truck from all sorts of marauding bad guy's, obviously Swayze is no Mel Gibson & the two don't compare in terms of excitement or quality but that's what I kept think while I was watching it. The character's are clichéd & one dimensional but they serve their purpose well enough, there's some alright one-liners including a funny one where a bad guy ends up splattered on the road & Swayze says 'Eeww, roadkill'! That line alone is almost worth watching this for. It certainly moves along at a brisk enough pace, you've got your bad guy's & you've got your good guy's as well as those caught up in the middle & you know what I actually thought Black Dog was pretty fun, it's not art but it's entertaining & how can you not like a film in which the main villain is Meat Loaf & the main hero is Patrick Swayze? You can't & it's as simple & straight forward as that.
Director Hooks does alright, some of the truck crashes are impressive although the actual chase scenes lack a little spark, they are OK but not quite as exciting as I'd have liked. There's not much violence apart from a few shoot-outs & a fight at the end. Talking of the end even though Swayze has been hauling a lorry of guns & making lots of things blow up the FBI give him back his license, they let him go scott free, they take care of his $9,000 debt & let him drive the truck to the police pound. Isn't that a bit, well, generous? I mean he beat Cutler up didn't he? That in itself is assault & it doesn't matter if the guy he beat up is a scumbag either, also what about all the destruction he caused? Surely he broke the terms of his parole somewhere along the way, didn't he?
Technically the film is fine, it looks like it had some money spent on it although it doesn't quite look like a mega budget affair. The acting is OK, Swayze looks bored & embarrassed, Meat Loaf is Meat Loaf while Charles S. Dutton puts in a funny performance as FBI agent Alan Ford (Ford? Trucks? Is that meant to be an in-joke because I ain't laughing guy's!).
Black Dog is a silly, cheesy & amusing way to pass 90 odd minutes, it's a light hearted action flick using big trucks. It's watchable enough for sure.
Directed Kevin Hooks Black Dog is a cheesy but sort of fun action flick that could have been better but also could have been worse. The somewhat predictable script by William Mickelberry & Dan Vining doesn't take itself too seriously & feels like an extended version of the final climatic truck chase from Mad Max 2 (1981) in the sense Jack has to protect his truck from all sorts of marauding bad guy's, obviously Swayze is no Mel Gibson & the two don't compare in terms of excitement or quality but that's what I kept think while I was watching it. The character's are clichéd & one dimensional but they serve their purpose well enough, there's some alright one-liners including a funny one where a bad guy ends up splattered on the road & Swayze says 'Eeww, roadkill'! That line alone is almost worth watching this for. It certainly moves along at a brisk enough pace, you've got your bad guy's & you've got your good guy's as well as those caught up in the middle & you know what I actually thought Black Dog was pretty fun, it's not art but it's entertaining & how can you not like a film in which the main villain is Meat Loaf & the main hero is Patrick Swayze? You can't & it's as simple & straight forward as that.
Director Hooks does alright, some of the truck crashes are impressive although the actual chase scenes lack a little spark, they are OK but not quite as exciting as I'd have liked. There's not much violence apart from a few shoot-outs & a fight at the end. Talking of the end even though Swayze has been hauling a lorry of guns & making lots of things blow up the FBI give him back his license, they let him go scott free, they take care of his $9,000 debt & let him drive the truck to the police pound. Isn't that a bit, well, generous? I mean he beat Cutler up didn't he? That in itself is assault & it doesn't matter if the guy he beat up is a scumbag either, also what about all the destruction he caused? Surely he broke the terms of his parole somewhere along the way, didn't he?
Technically the film is fine, it looks like it had some money spent on it although it doesn't quite look like a mega budget affair. The acting is OK, Swayze looks bored & embarrassed, Meat Loaf is Meat Loaf while Charles S. Dutton puts in a funny performance as FBI agent Alan Ford (Ford? Trucks? Is that meant to be an in-joke because I ain't laughing guy's!).
Black Dog is a silly, cheesy & amusing way to pass 90 odd minutes, it's a light hearted action flick using big trucks. It's watchable enough for sure.