Black Dog Review
by "Nathaniel R. Atcheson" (nate AT pyramid DOT net)May 8th, 1998
Black Dog (1998)
Director: Kevin Hooks
Cast: Patrick Swayze, Randy Travis, Meat Loaf, Gabriel Casseus, Brian Vincent, Brenda Strong
Screenplay: William Mickelberry, Dan Vining, Scott Sturgeon Producers: Raffaella De Laurentiis, Mark W. Koch
Runtime:
US Distribution: Universal
Rated PG-13: violence, language
By Nathaniel R. Atcheson ([email protected])
If you've seen the trailers for Black Dog, you probably know why I wasn't expecting a very good film. The picture wasn't screened for critics, and that's never a good sign--if the studio doesn't believe in the quality of the film, why even bother making it in the first place? In any event, the film has a silly title, and the hook is that it's a loud action film with trucks and Patrick Swayze. Need I say more?
Well, in fact, I do, because here we have a surprising anomaly: the film isn't too bad. Oh sure, it's just an action film, and it's pretty mindless, and suffers greatly from wretched excess. However, it's well-crafted and exciting, thanks to director Kevin Hooks, and it has a surprisingly clever script and some decent acting. It's not that hard to make a good action film, but seeing as how the formula is repeatedly botched (Hard Rain, The Peacemaker, and Firestorm all come to mind), it's nice to see one that has no pretensions about what it is (a mindless action flick about trucks).
Swayze plays Jack Crews, a man who's just been released from a prison sentence which he served for vehicular manslaughter. When we meet him, he's working on the underside of a car, and he's summoned by his boss (Graham Beckel). His boss knows that Jack used to be a great truck driver, and that going to prison made him lose his license; regardless, he wants Jack to drive a truck full of merchandise from here to there, and he offers Jack a lot of money.
Jack takes the job because he and his wife are broke, and he doesn't want to lose the house for which he's spent so much of his life saving. He finds out really quick that he's hauling a truckload of illegal weapons, and that Meat Loaf wants to hijack the truck. Simultaneously, a couple of FBI agents (Charles Dutton and Stephen Tobolowski) are trailing the weapons and know all about Jack's financial situation.
I'm not sure who thought up this film, but it's been written by three people. I don't know why it needed three people to write it, but, as action film scripts go, this is a pretty good one. Swayze has a certain amount of grit and realism as Jack, and there's enough character in there that we can actually root for him and care about his family. The supporting performances are colorful, particularly from Randy Travis (who just seems to be along for the ride), and Dutton and Tobolowski, who have some pretty clever scenes as the constantly-arguing officials.
Easily the best elements of Black Dog are the action sequences, which are genuinely exciting and well-directed by Kevin Hooks. One scene in particular--which features four big rigs fighting their way down a mountain pass--is terrific and unrelenting in its approach. Mix in George S. Clinton's pounding score and you have a film that will not fail to keep you interested.
Oh sure, it suffers from extreme excess (literally everything in this film explodes at some point), and implausibility (the deal Jack strikes up with the agents is very convenient) and a few cliches (the bad guy who has to die twice). But it's a fun movie. It held my attention all the way through the last unneeded action sequence (which, happily, ends in a violent death). Black Dog isn't the cream of the action film crop, but it's refreshing to see a dumb movie that recognizes its own stupidity and flaunts it as shamelessly as this.
**1/2 out of ****
(6/10, C+)
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Nathaniel R. Atcheson
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
