Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I honestly wasn't expecting too much from this movie, but for what I got I was entertained and never bored. BLACK DOG is a fairly standard late-90's B-grade action movie, but its colorful characters help it to transcend the genre clichés and make it somewhat memorable. The basic plot is that Jack Crews (Patrick Swayze) is in need of some extra money and agrees to take a truck-driving job transporting some goods. Little does he know that it's some illegal guns, and soon he has people on his trail as he tries to make the delivery.I've never been too much of a Patrick Swayze fan, mostly because I don't think he can act that well. He has some charisma, for sure, but the only movie I've really enjoyed him in prior to this was ROAD HOUSE. Here, he doesn't get that kind of a role to play, but thankfully the supporting players pick up the slack and make the movie worth watching. Of those cast members, the most entertaining were Meat Loaf as a Bible-quoting madman, and Charles Dutton and Stephen Tobolowsky as a bickering FBI and ATF agent, respectively. Their short scene that opens the film is, in my opinion, the best part and sort of sets the tone for what follows, at least when they're on screen. Randy Travis also has a supporting role, but all they can do with him is make jokes and references to his real-life career as a country singer.In general, the acting was decent for this type of movie. The action, of course, was well-done. By virtue of being produced before Hollywood became obsessed with CGI and shaky-cam, this film features real stunts, real explosions and crisp, clean action sequences done with some flair. Yes, having cars and trucks explode on impact in a collision is ridiculous, but it's also ridiculously entertaining to watch. Most importantly, the truck-driving sequences were filmed in an interesting way, and actually on the highway. Other positives I can think of are a suitably bombastic score and some gentle soundtrack cuts courtesy of Randy Travis. I don't really care for country music, but he's one person I can tolerate.The negative aspects I can mention are all fairly standard for the genre. There's a lot of plot holes, story threads that aren't followed up on (or at least satisfactorily), and of course the premise. Part of this can be chalked up to the run time. At 89 minutes, it is a little light on story and character development, but then again it didn't exactly need to be complex. Overall, this was much more fun than I was anticipating. It's by no means a good movie, but it's pretty entertaining for what it is. When all is said and done, there's a lot worse ways to spend your time. Also, they do explain what the title means, in case you were wondering.

Jack Crews (Patrick Swayze) is a con man, recently released from Prison, is offered a substantial amount of money for one more job. Jack and his wife receive a notice that their house is under foreclosure. This job will free Jack from his predicament. Jack doesn't realize that illegal weapons have been secretly stored in the back of the truck. Jack is in the fight of his life, not only to get paid, but to save his family as wellPatrick Swayze is a man I greatly admire. I always felt he was a very solid actor, but his star power had begun to really fizzle out at this juncture. Black Dog looks and feels like a STD film, but it actually got a theatrical release (!) While there have been bigger bombs than this one at the box office, this one was pretty much a bomb, by making only 12 million. Black Dog cares more about truck carnage, than story coherency. It has plenty of crashes, chases, but I didn't care about any of it, because the story was so poor. We get mystical mumbo-jumbo involving The Black Dog, and it's filled with awful country music, and predictable twists. Be prepared for many jokes when it comes to Randy Travis's character. At one point, Patrick Swayze says to him "You should be a professional singer" How lame can you get? Not only do we have to endure Randy Travis's horrific acting skills, but an unbearably hammy Meat Loaf, who is so OTT, he should be ashamed of himself. I cringed whenever he was on screen. Patrick Swayze does what he can, but he has crappy material to work with. He is watchable as he always is, but this is one of his forgettable performances. It's not his fault, though. His character is written horribly, and he just looks ashamed to be in this film, not that I blame him. We also get one of those annoying false endings. I was relieved this movie was over, and to get a false ending, with a film that wasn't exactly asking for it. It annoyed meFinal Thoughts: Do yourself a favor and skip it. Not even die hard Swayze fans can get much out of this one. I love cheesy movies, but this has no entertainment value. It's a really bad movie, and one I'd suggest you stay away from3.6/10

One would expect that a movie of this name would actually play the Led Zepplin song of the same name somewhere. They don't, though they do mention it. Maybe they just couldn't get the rights to the song. That doesn't matter because it is a pretty decent film anyway and they don't need one Led Zepplin song to make it any better.The movie is based around a truck driver that has had his license suspended for life for culpable driving (vehicular manslaughter in the US). He has just been released and is given a job repairing trucks. His boss is a crook though and wants him to run a shipment of guns from Atlanta to New Jersey, something which he does not want to do. When he discovers that his house is about to be repossessed by the bank, he changes his mind and takes the job.The movie thus becomes a road movie in a very big truck. But there are numerous other aspects, like the theme of appearance and reality and trust. There are numerous people in the movie that have many different motives and we are never sure who is on the truckies side. The only people we know are who they claim to be are the driver and his family. Everybody else seem to have other things on their mind, and even more, they may seem bad and turn out to be good.One may be interested in why the movie is called Black Dog. Decent name, but there is a reason behind it. It seems at first that it may have something to do with the black pitbull in the back of the truck, but this is not the case. It is actually a truckie legend, that before the truckie falls, they will see the black dog. It is a harbinger of doom and a humbler of proud souls. The black dog is only added as character background and there is never any appearance of it during the journey.Black Dog is an action movie with big trucks. If you like trucks, then Black Dog is a good movie. If you like seeing trucks get smashed up and destroyed, then you will seriously like Black Dog. It has a simple plot with a fair bit of action. There is time where is focuses on character development, but it is seeing the truck scenes that captures your minds with this movie rather than the interaction.

I must have watched this movie dozens of times and each time I find something I never noticed before or wasn't paying attention too, During the whole gun running trip Patrick is driving a Peterbilt with what looked like a standard 48 foot dry box. They show an action scene driving down a state highway. When it is reported to the FBI and DEA it is stated that they were wrecking on an Interstate Highway. The closest scene I have noticed that looked anywhere like or near NJ was just before the show down and the truck was driving up the helix coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel. For that to happen they would have had to be coming out of NYC. Last but not least when the exchange is being made and Travis is up in the crane the load is no longer in the over the road trailer and in a shipping container. Considering that they were supposed to do that in about 2 hours there was no way they could have off loaded the load off the trailer and placed it in to a shipping container.Overall I still love this movie and tend to watch it when ever it is on TV.