D-TOX (2002) If you see it, see it drunk! Some movies, like Alyssa Milano, can get pretty far on looks alone. D-Tox is one such movie. It's not good. It's not quite bad, but it sure ain't good. But it looks great. It's like The Thing with a slasher instead of a shape-changing alien. Sylvester Stallone plays Jake Mallory, an FBI agent on the case of a serial killer who preys only on cops, and, in one case, one muscle-bound FBI agent's girlfriend. This sends Mallory into a three-month spiral of depression and sucking down as much booze as he can get his hands on, until he is convinced to enlist in a detox program for cops, run by cops. This program gets underway in a remote former military installation which looks like a cross between Jabba the Hutt's palace and that atmosphere processing plant in Aliens. It's in the Wyoming mountains, and oh yeah, it's the dead of winter and there's a blizzard outside which probably isn't going to stop 'til spring. This site is run by Kris Kristofferson, and the motley group of drunks and speed freaks with badges and guns (which they have to turn in at the door) include Robert Patrick as a grade-A asshole and a whole bunch of other more or less familiar faces. And there's one unlucky bastard who didn't make it there, because the killer killed him, dumped the body, and took his place. Director Jim Gillespie also directed I Know What You Did Last Summer, a similarly good-looking but ultimately empty film. There's some fun violence (just to be mean, the killer always shoves a spinning drill bit through the peephole of the front door when somebody's peering out), and lots of frozen corpses. The killer amusingly spends most of his scenes wearing a big parka with the hood up (a la Urban Legend), and hey, that constant blizzarding out there is a nice touch. That's mood, baby! I love a good blizzard in a movie. But there isn't a single character whose name I could remember even while watching the film, the dialogue (blame it on first-timer Ron L. Brinkerhoff, though it's based on a novel by Howard Swindle) lacks any sort of personality, and there too many missed opportunities (particularly with the assortment of borderline nutcases). Even the identity of the killer is fairly obvious - for one thing, half the characters are eliminated as suspects because we're shown early on that the killer is a white male. Good job, Jim. There are a lot of bad turns the movie avoids, however. There are no huge explosions, no helicopters, no overblown where-did-this-come-from FX shots, just an extremely simple story (nothing wrong with that) set in a really cool setting. Unfortunately, that story just doesn't unfold very well. For example, the killer's motive is revealed so early, I kept expecting it to turn out to be a red herring. So, yeah - pretty bad career move for Sly, though this might make for a pretty cool exercise in mood alone. D-Tox has been in release limbo for just about forever, and there's still no release in sight. No doubt about it, it's going to flop - I mean, look at all that snow. Filmgoers can truly be pathetic weaklings in some ways, and one of those ways is the way they run screaming from any movie which dares show them a snowflake or two. It won't flop on snow alone, though, and that's why I won't be shedding any tears for it. BACK TO THE D's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE