Desperate for money, a former truck driver with a suspended licence reluctantly takes a job driving unspecified contraband across the country, but a double cross results in things being less straightforward than they first seem in this high octane action film starring Patrick Swayze. The title refers to a common hallucination among sleep deprived drivers (which the film hauntingly depicts in flashback at one point) but it actually has very little bearing on the central story, other than it being the reason why Swayze lost his licence. There is also an actual black dog in the film, but again its purpose is minimal, a lame joke or two aside. And yet, while reading up about the actual 'black dog' legend is in many ways more interesting than the film itself, 'Black Dog' offers a pretty decent ride. The story is too sentimental for its own good as Swayze is saddled with a beautiful doting daughter and wife who are just so desperately short on cash, and a maudlin music score does not help, but the action sequences -- most of them filmed on moving vehicles (!) -- are quite well assembled. The movie also successfully derives humour from Stephen Tobolowsky and Charles S. Dutton as government agents from different sectors who keep clashing in funny ways (Tobolowsky reckons that Dutton gets angry so easily due to masculinity issues, etc.). With two-dimensional villains, a plot that does not entirely make sense and the aforementioned heavy sentiment, this is a flawed film for sure, but it is also nowhere near as worthless as some out there would suggest.
