“Ugh, roadkill!”

Justin’s rating: Randy Travis is my co-pilot

Justin’s review: Friends, it’s been a long, long time since I watched a Patrick Swayze movie. Maybe it’s been too long. So going back to get in touch with my Swayziness, I pulled out a — why not? — trucker movie from 1998.

I never understood why Swayze effectively dropped off the radar after a decade-long string of absolute classics. What happened to him after 1993 when he only sporadically made films, and even those decidedly niche titles? And was Black Dog his attempt to get back into the mainstream?

Maybe the truth is a combination of sad factors: Swayze got old, he didn’t transition into the ’90s as well as some other action stars, he didn’t have the right Hollywood connections, he was in rehab for a while, and he chose bad projects. In any case, this was his final hurrah (of a sort) as the action hero we once knew him to be.

Swayze is Jack Crews, an ex-con, ex-truck driver lacking a license. Desperate for money to keep his family’s house from foreclosure, he takes a shady gig that actually ends up being a shipment full of illegal weapons. He’s got to make a run from Atlanta up to New Jersey, all without drawing suspicion and while dealing with a crew of new besties that includes Sonny (Gabriel Casseus), Wes (Brian Vincent), and Earl (Randy Travis). It should go without saying that some of them are hiding a secret or two of their own.

It isn’t too long before mysterious hijackers try to ram the truck off the road — hijackers hired by a nutty Bible-quoting Red (Meat Loaf) — while both Charles S. Dutton and Stephen Tobolowsky (representing rival law agencies) try to stop the truck as well.

I actually like the setup here because it puts the hero right in the middle of every rock and hard place with no clear path to victory. If he gets the truck to Jersey, he might save his house and get his license back, but he’ll have flooded the streets with AK-47s. But getting caught or killed is pretty dang bad too. Oh, and if that’s not bad enough, his wife and girl get held at gunpoint as collateral.

Between tense moments and some pretty fun chase sequences, Black Dog tosses in some trucker lingo and road trip vibes. Crews’ partners give him an opportunity to show off his knowledge of Class A driving. He also has a monologue later in the film about what, exactly, the “black dog” is — and it isn’t the actual black dog that’s in the back of the truck for some reason.

I got the feeling that the filmmakers were trying to go for a bit of Speed — and maybe The Fugitive — with Black Dog. There’s some big machinery in motion, an emphasis on stunt setpieces, and a lot of quippy law enforcement officers. It is quite the choice to go with a trucker theme, seeing as how those movies weren’t popular since the early ’80s. But hey, maybe they thought it was due for a revival?

Enjoy, too, the country music soundtrack and Deep South charm. I guess it’s a good combination for a movie about a passionate trucker, but it was probably another strike against this gaining any sort of widespread appeal.

Yet Black Dog is a good time full of slow-mo crashes, quotes, explosions, and mid-budget thrills. We really don’t get flicks like this any more, which injects this with a nostalgic value that it didn’t have back in ’98. I ended up liking this a whole lot more than I originally anticipated, so if that has any sway-ze with you, I say pick up a copy and gun it.

Intermission!

• I can’t help but think of all of the insurance claims and police reports that must happen after some of these destructive chase scenes in movies.
• “The way I see it, you only need a license if you get pulled over.”
• Angry dog dream sequence!
• “Yeah, you can drive.” “It’s coming back to me.”
• Laundry basket attack!
• The truck ripping right through the trailer house
• “You piss too much Wes.”
• “We are shutting this truck down.”
• “You got a truck full of death here man.”
• How to patch up a bullet wound with some gun powder cauterizing
• It’s hilarious that Randy Travis’ character is deliberately a horrible singer
• I guess it’s pretty easy to get access to shipping cranes
• The FBI often gives out licenses and saves foreclosed houses at the end of cases
• OUT OF NOWHERE FINAL CHASE