‘Black Dog’ Mixes 92 Octane With 87 IQ

Patrick Swayze is caught between the pedal and the metal in “Black Dog,” a movie lacking the charm and style to raise it above a demolition derby with a country music soundtrack.

Deliver a truckload of illegal guns to Newark with the FBI and double-crossing transporters on his tail or lose his wife and daughter to the really bad guys and his house to the bank. And all this without a driver’s license.

“Black Dog” asks the pressing philosophical question: Is it still a special effect to have a truck ram into a gasoline tanker and blow up?

Oh yes, people die, too. Many people, all bad in some way. And most deserve to die for turning their trucks into weapons of mass destruction. Is there no American Society for the Preservation of Trucks and Other Internal Combustion Vehicles to object to the cruel and inhumane treatment various 18-wheelers, car-carriers, pickups, motorcycles and cars receive?

Remember all those convoy movies back in the days of CB radios, when the road promised romance and escape? Not here. There’s grit in the oil, bitter water in the gas tank. It’s not “The Dukes of Hazzard,” more like “Really Mad Max” meets “Smokey and the Gun Runners.”

The plot runs along well-lighted roads with plenty of chases, crashes, escapes and corn-fed dialogue. As Swayze tells the man who set him up: “I’ll do what I have to.”

But there’s hope for Randy Travis fans: He acts rings around Swayze, who has swagger and the sneer but stays too cool throughout. There’s a camera in front of your windshield, Patrick. Do something for it. His only emotional moments are spoken; he is a trucker who doesn’t even listen to country music.

Travis sings a little, sometimes in the truck cab, sometimes on the score. See, it’s his hobby. He turns the boredom of the highway (not to mention those life-threatening moments that come his way as moving contraband from state to state) into country songs. Maybe one day his truck will crash into a radio station.

The ever-icky Meat Loaf makes an appearance in a role that fits him like a spiked glove: He’s a Bible-quoting, cigar-chomping, lunchmeat-coupon-clipping bad guy who lets loose most of the truck-crunching action.

There may be an interesting movie somewhere in “Black Dog” and in the character of Jack Crews. But it prefers to rub metal together, rather than people or ideas.

* MPAA rating: PG-13 for violence and language. Times guidelines: A young girl is threatened, the body count is high and dangerous driving techniques are presented as a matter of self-defense.

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‘Black Dog’

Patrick Swayze: Jack Crews

Randy Travis: Earl

Meat Loaf: Red

Gabriel Casseus: Sonny

Brian Vincent: Wes

Universal Pictures and Mutual Film Co. present a Prelude Pictures production in association with Raffaella de Laurentiis. A Kevin Hooks Film. Directed by Kevin Hooks. Written by William Mickelberry and Dan Vining. Produced by Peter Saphier, Mark W. Koch, Raffaella de Laurentiis. Executive producers Mace Neufeld, Robert Rehme, Gary Levinsohn, Mark Gordon. Co-producers Hester Hargett, Susan Solomon. Director of photography Buzz Feitshans IV. Production designer Victoria Paul. Music George S. Clinton. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

* In general release.