Black Dog (1998)

Tagline: The only way to stay safe to stay moving.

Curiosity: Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing! Road House! Next of Kin?) and Meat Loaf fight each other… with trucks!

Plot: Jack Crews (The Swayze) was once the best truck driver in all the world. He drove stuff from Point A to Point B, even if the stuff was nuclear weapons or whatever. He was good at what he did. But then he killed a guy because he is also a terrible, terrible driver and lost his license. He even did jail time despite being an A-OK guy otherwise.

Once he gets out of prison, though, Crews realizes his family is about to lose their house. Crews can’t go back to “the city,” what with “the gangs” and “the drugs” and “the rap music.” In comes Cutler (Graham Beckel) with an offer too good to be honest: Deliver a load of stuff, no questions asked, for a whole lot of money. Oh sure, the load might be toilets. But inside those toilets ain’t poop, it’s guns, pal.

Er’rybody wants these guns. Cutler’s buyer wants to sell them on the streets. Cutler’s henchman Red (Meat Loaf) wants to steal them for his own gains. And you best believe the FBI and ATF, spearheaded by bickering agents Charles Dutton (Alien 3, Legion… this guy is better than most of his movies deserve, really) and Stephen Toblowsky want those guns.

What’s a Swayze to do but keep on truckin’?

Thoughts: I think writers William Mickelberry and Dan Vining had an idea for a movie about truckers caught in a gun smuggling ring. That’s a decent idea for an action movie. I think they even researched it pretty thoroughly, as Black Dog explains tons of details about the trucker life, like weigh stations and lingo. Then I think they realized their movie was still boring, so they added a ton of other bullshit to spice it up.

Black Dog is a solid actioner, but it never ups the stakes enough. Oh it tries and tries to pile stuff on (Red won’t die! Cutler has Swayze’s wife and child!), but it never quite hits that perfect percentage of dramatic tension and human interest. It also ends like three times before it really ends. Considering it’s only 89 minutes long, the story really is threadbare despite being overstuffed with additions like the idea of a ghostly black dog that haunts greedy truckers.

I find the black dog concept to be superfluous to the film. It’s supposed to give Swayze’s character something to struggle against but, honestly, he’s already trying to save his house and, later in the film, his family. Dude’s got enough on his plate. At first I thought it was a bullshit addition, then I found out the black dog is actually a British myth, not an American one, and I just laughed.

Black Dog has some cool driving sequences. It’s also got my man Swayze being a hardass. But so much of the movie could have been cut, from Red’s random Bible quotes to Randy Travis’ character Earl entirely (Sorry Randy Travis).

Reflection: You still my boy, Swayze.