A Sylvester Stallone vehicle, D-Tox thinks it is inventive, earnest and serious, but it is actually just extremely dull and formulaic. Following the death of his girlfriend at the hands of a twisted serial killer, hard-nosed cop Frank Malloy (the in-need-of-a-hit Stallone) turns to drink. He then checks in to a remote, futuristic rehab clinic for cops to confront both his demons and the prospect of wearing a lavender-coloured parka for the duration of his stay. Cut off from civilisation by a freak blizzard, the inmates start committing strangely elaborate suicides, and it quickly transpires that the killer is amongst them.
The killer's motives are meant to teach us something about the human condition, but they are contrived and convoluted, and merely provide the excuse for some uninventive, suspenseless deaths. The film is also littered with supposedly profound therapy scenes in which the characters discuss fear, grief and addiction, and Stallone is foolishly given the opportunity to "act". Worse still, a very strong supporting cast (including Kris Kristofferson, Charles S Dutton, Tom Berenger and Robert Patrick) is all but completely wasted and the whole affair is both narratively and visually derivative, unsuccessfully trying to evoke the weight of numerous better films such as Seven, The Shining and The Thing. During one of many tedious bawling sessions, a fellow inmate consoles Stallone with the wisdom that "sometimes the real bad things in life can make you stronger". Watching D-Tox, however, is definitely an exception. --Paul Philpott
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