D-Tox

D-Tox
Directed by Jim Gillespie
Produced by Ric Kidney
Screenplay by Howard Swindle
Story by Ron L. Brinkerhoff
Based on Jitter Joint
by Howard Swindle
Starring
Music by John Powell
Cinematography Dean Semler
Edited by
  • Tim Alverson
  • Steve Mirkovich
Production
company
  • KC Medien
  • Capella International
Distributed by
Release date
  • February 1, 2002 (2002-02-01) (United Kingdom)
  • September 20, 2002 (2002-09-20) (United States)
Running time
 96 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $55 million[1]
Box office $6.4 million[1]

D-Tox is a 2002 American psychological thriller film directed by Jim Gillespie, and starring Sylvester Stallone and Charles S. Dutton. The film was released in the United States on September 20, 2002 under the title Eye See You by DEJ Productions.

The film is based on the 1999 novel Jitter Joint written by Howard Swindle.

Plot

FBI agent Jake Malloy is pursuing a serial killer who specializes in killing police officers. Malloy's former partner becomes one of the victims. While Malloy is at his partner's home, the murderer calls Malloy from Malloy's home while Mary, his girlfriend, is there. The killer tells Malloy that he pursued him four years before for a series of prostitute murders; he is holding a grudge and he's going to kill Mary. Malloy rushes home to find Mary dead. When the killer's hideout is found, Seattle police and the FBI blockade the area before Malloy arrives. Malloy pursues the killer only to find that he appears to have committed suicide.

Three months later, Malloy descends into alcoholism over Mary's murder. After Malloy slits his wrists in an unsuccessful suicide attempt, his best friend and supervising officer, Agent Chuck Hendricks, enrolls Malloy in a rehabilitation program designed for law enforcement officers. The clinic was formerly an abandoned military base. Dr. John "Doc" Mitchell, a former cop and recovering alcoholic, established the rehab center as a way of dealing with his problems. Hendricks stays in Wyoming to ensure Malloy will be okay.

Malloy meets several other officers who are patients in the clinic, including Peter Noah, an arrogant and paranoid ex-SWAT officer, Frank Slater, a cynical, opinionated British police officer, Willie Jones, a religious homicide detective, Jaworski, an alcoholic narcotics cop who attempted suicide, Lopez, a foul-mouthed LAPD officer, and McKenzie, an elderly member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who saw his partner get killed. He meets several staff members, including Doc's assistant and mechanic Hank and compassionate resident psychiatrist and nurse Jenny Munroe, with whom Malloy develops a bond.

A blizzard seals everyone in the rehab center with no outside communication. The next day, Jenny finds the body of Connor, one of the troubled patients who apparently killed himself. Jenny suspects otherwise, believing Connor would have come to her. The next morning Hank finds the body of Carl Brandon, another patient. Brandon also seems to have killed himself, but Malloy deduces otherwise.

Doc locks up the surviving patients while he reviews their files. Jenny informs Doc that Jack Bennett, a deranged employee who was a former patient in the clinic, is missing along with a snowmobile. Malloy convinces Jenny to lock her room. After Doc is killed by a man wielding an axe, everyone but Malloy and Jenny think Jack is the killer. Malloy opens the safe and hands the surviving cops their sidearms. Hendricks finds a body in a frozen lake, and learns from the owner of a nearby fishing shop that the victim was a cop. Hendricks and the owner of the shop return to the clinic.

Hank, the clinic's cook Manny, and helper Gilbert, volunteer to drive through the blizzard in a pickup truck to get outside help. Malloy wants Jenny to leave as well, but she refuses. While driving away, Hank sees something in front of him and veers away from it. The truck slides off the icy road, crashing into a tree at the bottom of a ravine. Malloy and Jenny hear the crash, and Malloy hands a gun to Jenny before investigating. Malloy finds Manny murdered after he survived the crash. Malloy also finds Jack's body, the object that caused Hank to crash the truck. Malloy is startled by Gilbert approaching behind him. Gilbert, alive but scared, flees while Malloy rushes back to the clinic.

McKenzie, who is patrolling the old execution chamber, finds the machine activated. The killer electrocutes McKenzie, deactivating the building's power and heating system. Malloy forces everyone except Jenny to their cells as he realizes one of the cops is a killer impersonating a patient. Suspecting the man responsible is Mary's killer, Malloy exams Connor's body in the kitchen. Remembering the killer saying, "I see you, but you don't see me", Malloy looks inside Connor's eyelids and finds "I" on one eyelid and "CU" on the other. As Malloy and Jenny return to the cells, Hank, thinking Malloy might be the killer, knocks him out. He locks Malloy in Slater's cell and releases everyone else.

Malloy finds a vent, but as he uses a matchbook from Slater to light the cell, Malloy learns it came from a Seattle restaurant frequently visited by cops and Malloy himself, which reveals Slater as the killer as he watches policemen to learn about their habits and Malloy's. Malloy escapes the cell and finds the missing badges above Slater's room, which he collects as trophies. After establishing his innocence, Malloy has Jones and Lopez conduct patrol while Jaworski stays with Jenny in the patient room. Malloy heads into the tunnels beneath the facility.

Hank, Noah, and Slater go to the tunnels to retrieve logs for heating, with the other two unaware that Slater is the killer. Slater convinces them to split up before killing each of them. As Malloy patrols the tunnels, Slater taunts him over a CB radio and lures Malloy to Noah's hanged body where he finds the other radio. Slater is about to leave the clinic, but hears Jenny calling out Malloy's name. Malloy learns that Slater is at the tunnel's trapdoor and rushes to save Jenny.

Outside the installation, Hendricks and the fishing shop owner find Gilbert alive and bring him inside the snowcat before arriving at the rehab center. Hendricks sees Jenny's footprints and follows them. Jenny runs to a nearby shed, hiding from Slater. Malloy arrives, telling Jenny to stay inside the shed. Slater catches Hendricks before Malloy catches him from behind. Slater jumps into the shed and knocks Jenny out and wounds Hendricks. Malloy and Slater confront each other, with Malloy ultimately killing Slater.

Jenny regains consciousness and helps the wounded Hendricks walk to the clinic with Malloy, whose left arm was stabbed during the fight, following them. Malloy stops for the moment and puts the ring he was planning to propose to Mary with on a tree branch before walking away from it.

Cast

Production

The film was shot in Washington, DC, US, and Vancouver, BC, Canada.[2]

After the film was finished in 1999, Universal decided to screen it to a test audience but all the screenings of the first cut were met with negative reception from audiences. The film was then shelved for quite some time while re-shoots and story changes were being done.[3] Composer John Powell wrote two complete scores for the film, one of which was rejected. With the film delayed and relegated to a European release by Universal due to the studio's dissatisfaction with the film in general, most of Powell's score was replaced with additional music by William Ross, Geoff Zanelli, and Nick Glennie-Smith as an attempt to make the film salvageable. New ending was also filmed in which the main villain is killed in a different way.[4] But even after re-shoots and title changes (it was originally called Detox before being retitled The Outpost and then again into Eye See You), Universal didn't care for the film and after test screenings for the new version also got negative response from audience they released it over three years after it was originally finished but in limited release.[5]

In Q&A for Ain't It Cool News in December 2006, Sylvester Stallone was asked why the film didn't get a wide release and then answered:

It’s very simple why D-TOX landed in limbo. A film is a very delicate creature. Any adverse publicity or internal shake-up can upset the perception of - and studio confidence in - a feature. For some unknown reason the original producer pulled out and right away the film was considered damaged goods; by the time we ended filming there was trouble brewing on the set because of overages and creative concerns between the director and the studio. The studio let it sit on the shelf for many months and after over a year it was decided to do a re-shoot. We screened it, it tested okay, Ron Howard was involved with overseeing some of the post-production… but the movie had the smell of death about it. Actually, if you looked up, you could see celluloid buzzards circling as we lay there dying on the distributor’s floor. One amusing note: It was funny, when we were met at the airport by the teamsters they’d have a sign in front of them saying DETOX, and all these actors like Kris Kristofferson, Tom Berenger and myself looked like we were going into rehab rather than a film shoot.[6]

DVD release of the film includes 8 deleted scenes as bonus feature, but original ending is not included. Theatrical trailers show several deleted and alternate scenes, including some that are not included in DVD, like more nudity by Dina Meyer during her shower scene.

Reception

The film has an approval rating of 15% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 20 reviews.[7] Danny Graydon of BBC Films said: "Clearly, Hollywood's confidence in this film is lower than Pee-Wee Herman's Oscar chances, and their instincts are right: a boring, formulaic mix of serial killers and stalk'n'slash, this will not reinvigorate Sylvester Stallone's action hero status or loosen his maniacal destruction of the quality control button".[8]

References

  1. 1 2 "Eye See You (D-Tox)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  2. ↑ "Detox (2000)". Baseline. Retrieved 6 July 2015 – via The New York Times.
  3. ↑ "Universal's EYE SEE YOU aka THE OUTPOST aka DETOX... info". Aint It Cool. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  4. ↑ Fischer, Paul. "Sylvester Stallone for “D-Tox”". Dark Horizons. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  5. ↑ Goldstein, Patrick. "Hidden by Hollywood: All-star cast of bombs". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  6. ↑ "Stallone answers December 9th & 10th Questions in a double round - plus Harry's Seen ROCKY BALBOA at BNAT!!!". Aint It Cool. Retrieved 24 May 2017.
  7. ↑ D-Tox (Eye See You), 2002-01-01, retrieved 2015-06-15
  8. ↑ Graydon, Danny (22 January 2002). "D-Tox (2002)". BBC Movies. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
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