D-Tox (2002) starring Sylvester Stallone, Charles S. Dutton, Polly Walker, Kris Kristofferson directed by Jim Gillespie Movie Review

D-Tox (2002)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Sylvester Stallone in D-Tox (2002)

Shouldn't Have Gone to Rehab

Fed Jake Malloy (Sylvester Stallone - Driven) is on the case of a sadistic killer when the killer starts getting personal and by personal I mean real personal by killing his girlfriend. Whilst it seems like the killer takes his own life Jake's life goes to pot as he hits the bottle unable to shake the feelings of guilt over his girl friends death leading to him trying to take his own life. He fails and Police chief Hendricks (Charles S. Dutton) takes him to an isolated rehab centre run by Doc (Kris Kristofferson), a former cop who specializes in treating cops who have seen the worse and have fallen in to bad ways. But whilst at the isolated centre people start to mysteriously die leading to Jake trying to discover who is doing it and is he in for a shock.

At the turn of the millennium it would be fair to say that Sylvester Stallone's career started to slide, his choice in movies was not good and it almost felt like he was losing the passion for making movies for anything other than a wage. But whilst it wasn't till 2006 that he regained his stride with "Rocky Balboa" some of the movies in the first part of the decade were not completely terrible and "D-Tox" is one of the better ones. I say better because it is watchable with a mix of drama and action which you expect from Stallone.

Polly Walker in D-Tox (2002)

But the thing is that "D-Tox" is not something new or original, we may get an opening which establishes why Stallone's character hits the bottle but from then on we are on familiar territory. That territory is an isolated building with various characters and someone doing some killing, think a movie set in the Artic and you will be thinking along the same lines. As such you know that Jake Malloy will use his detective skills to try and get to the bottom of things and having to be wary of the other men in rehab as he can't trust anyone for sure. Basically for all the dressing up, the location, the characters and serial killer build up it ends up a walk through a familiar story.

But whilst "D-Tox" ends up feeling like a rehash of other movies it works enough to keep you watching. Now part of the reason is that there are a lot of recognizable faces from Robert Prosky to Robert Patrick and in a way the fact that we have recognizable stars such as Tom Berenger, Kris Kristofferson and Polly Walker just makes it easier to watch. It also features Stallone trying to deliver a decent character and whilst it is not Stallone at his best he like the other stars is watchable.

Of course what "D-Tox" is is a thriller where what is meant to grip us is who is doing all the killing. This is where the movie is let down because rather than trying and build up the suspense, giving us clues to who it could be all it does is give us potential killers and action, no real clues to solve the mystery.

What this all boils down to is that "D-Tox" is not a good movie but it is a watchable one. And it is watchable because of the various recognizable actors more than anything.


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