13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Unforgettable Ride of Explosions and High Intellectualism, December 8, 2001
By A Customer
From the opening scene, it becomes clear that director Kevin Hooks is going to serve up a John Woo style action flick as the backdrop for promoting his views on existentialist thought. Patrick Swayze, a God-fearing truck driver, serves as a modern day Soren Kierkegaard while the rougher Randy Travis counters as an atheistic Jean-Paul Sartre figure. Together, the two must deliver one last shipment to prevent harm to Swayze's wife (a Simone de Beauvoir lookalike) and daughter, all the while battling an angry Meatloaf, the rig-driving equivalent of Edmund Husserl. While trucking cross-country, Swayze continually posits that religious faith is central to an authentic existence through the guise of insisting on delivering the goods "according to plan". Travis (who, incidentally, provides some lovely songs on the score with his `Juan and Diego Band') believes that by accommodating the terrorists' plan, they are checking their own individualism. In other words, they are "condemning themselves to be free" by forcing themselves to make future directed choices. At a critical point, Travis says, "Let's do it, Black Dog," revealing the existentialist common ground that an individual's subjective experience is the focus of what it is to exist as a human being.
Interestingly, the daughter-mother hostage scenes reveal a Nietzche-Hume debate on the habit of causality, but I won't reveal all the best bites. Look for writers Mickelberry and Vining's subtle nod to the unfortunate young death of Albert Camus during the truck-over-the-cliff scene!
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MUST SEE FOR EVERY TRUCKER!, November 2, 2003
This is a good action movie. If you have never driven a truck, then some of the details of the film probably will be lost on you. However, anyone who likes action and the trucking lifestyle should enjoy this movie. I give it "two thumbs up."
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Black Dog is one of the best, August 25, 2004
When i watched Black Dog for the first time i thought is was one of the best movies i had ever seen. Now that i have seen it i watch it over and over again. What makes the movie so great is that it has awsome soundtrack to go along with it. From Randy Travis singing "My Worst Fear" and Rhett Akins singing Eddie Rabbits "Driving My Life Away". I would recomend that everyone watch this movie at least once in your life. I would expecially recomend it if you are a truck driver your-self. It is so easy to comprehend with what they go through. Even if you arnt a truck driver your-self it gives yo a little respect of what they have to go through(just hopefully not so much drama) with dealing being away from the ones that you love, for just doing the job that they choose to do.
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