Film Review: D-Tox (2002)
There are various ways in which once unquestionable Hollywood star can have its status degraded, but few are as telling as Sylvester Stallone becoming main star of D-Tox, 2002 direct-to-DVD thriller directed by Jim Gillespie, a film that became one of the most obscure films in Stallone’s filmography for a very good reason.
In the film Stallone plays Jake Malloy, FBI agent who is pursuing vicious serial killer whose target happen to be policemen. He manages to catch him, but not before he commits suicide, having previously murdered Malloy’s best friend and girlfriend Mary (played by Dina Meyer). Malloy is troubled over his inability to protect loved ones and tries to find some sort of comfort in bottle. Three months later he is in such a bad shape that his best friend and mentor Chuck Hendricks (played by Charles S. Dutton) signs him into special rehabilitation program for law enforcement officers who became alcoholics or drug addicts. The program is operating in a remote military silo in Wyoming and is run by Dr. John “Doc” Mitchell (played by Kris Kristofferson), former policeman and recovering alcoholic. Before Malloy has opportunity to truly acquaint himself with diverse set of former policemen, some of them begin to disappear only to be found dead soon afterwards. At the same time a blizzard severs connection with outside world and Malloy, aware that homicidal maniac hides among patients’ ranks, must use all of his detective skills to find him before it is too late.
D-Tox was based on Jitter Joint, novel by Howard Swindle, and originally produced by Universal in 1999. Test screenings were, however, so awful that the Universal decided simply not to release it. Three years later D-Tox was very discreetly put in video distribution in Europe, and most of those who watched it probably agreed with studio’s original decision. Jim Gillespie, director best known for popular but highly overrated horror film I Know What You Did Last Summer didn’t do much with potentially interesting basic concept. D-Tox is filled with all the cliches you might expect in serial killer film, with Gillespie adding some “borrowed” from science fiction films like The Thing or Alien 3. To make things even worse, none of the characters, including protagonist played by Stallone, is likely to look likeable to the audience, which would mostly be indifferent to their ultimate fate. Another problem that sinks this film is rather quick pace of the killings and the killer’s identity being completely in line with canons of “political correctness”, making the finale quite predictable. Stallone did recover from this debacle and made number of successful films afterwards, but the days of reigning supreme at the box office were definitely behind him.
RATING: 2/10 (-)
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