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An Unforgettable Ride of Explosions and High Intellectualism

Jake McKay | 12/08/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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!"

AN ACTION-FILLED CHARACTER DRAMA!

Steven Hancock | Winston Salem, NC United States | 08/04/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great film. It is filled with exciting truck crashes, great fight sequences, and great acting performances turned in by Swayze, Randy Travis, Meat Loaf, and the rest of the cast. The guy that plays Mr. Cutler in this film plays an admiral in this years massive action epic PEARL HARBOR. This film is for anyone and everyone that enjoys action films with interesting characters and top-level storytelling. Grade: A+"