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"

Black dog was not any real inspiration, Swayze's career was still intact. The is an unexceptional action film, the norm, with really a simple scenario, we rely on car crashes, explosions to keep it going, which helps break the tedium of the actor's talk in between, with not the best written characters either, all though I did like the rambling Randy Travis, as the budding song writer. In Black Dog, age has worn and wearied Swayze, who plays a ex con, who did time on account of vehicular manslaughter, where his trucking days are now over. Now with his dream house in foreclosure, as he's just found out, he's trucking days have returned, when he's forced to take a 15 hour truck route offer at his work, he originally turned down, threats and all, to make the cash. This turns out to be a big mistake, as this truck, unbeknown to him, is hauling a lot of gun armor, where Meatloaf, and it's great to see him really seeing red, is ripping off the weaponry, but of course Swayze overpowers him, where now he's in over his head as breaking parole, where it just takes a call, but also his wife and cute little daughter, become hostages. There are a couple of suspense bits, one at a way station, where really they aren't impressive, but this is a standard action if bordering on commonplace movie, with some situations and very few plot points. We have two bickering cops to fill in the rest of the movie. One ATF, the other's FBI, one has a angry temperament, the other much more passive, it's a highpoint of this time passer. Oh they're the best performances in the movie, although Swayze's blonde and beautiful wife in this was good too. Even when we find out one of the trucking crew was FBI, we're not really even surprised, or don't care, which as I said before, they're the most memorably written characters. I admit, some of the action sequences were thrilling and well choreographed, but this is what this movie needed if to survive. It's mostly flat. Meatloaf, like only a couple of other actors turned in good or semi good performances. I did like the shock moment in the second ending with Meatloaf. Sadly Black dog just earns it place in the cheap, average, if B grade standard. One could say it was painfully average. The title actually refers to fatigued and worn truckers who a black dog leaping before them which instinctively has them realizing, when veered over, they're about to hit another vehicle. I'd like to hear other truckers opinions on that.

IF you have read the current comment on the film black dog and not yet seen it let me apologise. Black dog, whose title is explained in the most brief of ways in no way ties into the plot of the film although you keep expecting it too, it seems to me a more suitable title would have been "Gone in 60 years" or "too slow to boring". This film is quite frankly a joke, from the shoddy acting with such gems as "Its getting cold (then dies)" to the infamously hilarious quote "Crews Your ass is MINE". On a more serious note the acting in this movie is absolutely appalling and the only reason i would recommend seeing this is if you would want a laugh, i will watch this movie again and again purely for the spoof factor of it, if you are fan of awkward humour and telly bluffs like Garth Marenghis dark place, The IT crowd and other genre related shows and moves you will love this.. the action is spaced out only by terrible dialogue and a over presumptuous pyrotechnics team. Watch out for exploding cars, gun fights out of windows and meatloaf....every word he says is gold.I hope this will give you a more realistic view of "black Dog".

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.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/