Black Dog (1998)

When I started this blog I thought it would be a while before actors and film makers turned up in multiple posts. Oh how wrong was I. Five posts later and we have had two Michael J Fox films (due to a colleague lending me a rented DVD – I must stress!). I vowed to not do this again, but in a world where there are six degrees of Kevin Bacon, and the fact that I change my mind as much as I change my underpants meant another duplicate was in the post. You may not believe me but this post only became a duplicate after the credits rolled and I started typing. Ladies and gentleman I am reviewing another film from director Kevin Hooks.

Hooks also directed Passenger 57. He now works on TV and is an executive producer on Prison Break, and previously worked on 24. I have only seen another one of his films, Fled, and I won’t be reviewing it on here for a long time so Black Dog marks the end of the Kevin Hooks retrospective. It was just a coincidence that Black Dog was on TV the other night. Interestingly I have only ever seen it on TV late at night after coming back from the pub. In these circumstances it is great fun and worth watching.

Black Dog stars Patrick Swayze as Jack Crews, ex-con going straight and now a mechanic to providing for his skint family. Things change as he is offered 10 large to drive a truck for Red, played by Meat Loaf. What he doesn’t know is that the truck is full of firearms and as his driving license is revoked the last thing he needs is his collar being felt.

So why did he lose his license? Why was he in prison? Can’t you work it out? Course you can, but what you didn’t think about was the black dog. The what? Yep, the black dog. The black dog is legend, its a mythical beast that stalks the roads. If you pushing too hard or fall asleep at the wheel then it comes to ruin your life and take everything from you. Crews saw it and that’s what caused the accident that cost him his license and put him in jail. It’s not clear if he mentioned the black dog in his defence in court, perhaps he would have been better off with blaming it on a one armed man.

He is not interested in the job but then he finds out he is about to lose his house. So he takes the job, and of course the feds and the ATF know about it and are monitoring the truck. After an attempted high jacking by Red goes wrong the shit hits the fan. Why it did it go wrong? I hear you ask, well Red’s boys are idiots and “that son of bitch can drive”. Crews can, that’s for sure and he has nice driving gloves to prove it. Bodies are now mounting up so Crews decides to call it a day, but then his family is kidnapped as an insurance policy. That’s it, you can guess the rest.

So what else do we get? Well alongside Meat Loaf, we have another musician acting. Country singer Randy Travis plays Earl, one of the guys driving with Crews. We also get Ned Ryerson from Groundhog Day (actor Stephen Tobolowsky), and Charles S. Dutton playing the feds.

Swayze puts in an ok performance, you root for him, but it is generally forgettable compared to his turns in Point Break and Roadhouse. It does make you think what happened to him. Thankfully his part in Donnie Darko proved he is still a great talent, and with Point Break 2 on the cards who knows what’s in store.

Next steps – play 18 Wheeler on the Playstation and honk that horn.