Death Toll

i had to wait a couple of weeks to be able to rent this movie at red box because i was exited to see what was in store for movie fans. i was surprised to see how bad it was. in fact i did not finish it, "boring as hell". i do not understand why Lou and DMX can be in a movie that bad. i wanted to see it because of them, not the title. if the intent of the movie was to show the reality of violence and drug in some neighborhoods or how hard life can be in them, there are movies that have done a better job. how can two well known and good actors participate or even produce what looks like a low budget and non professional movie. a few minutes after i started to watch the movie i was no longer interested in finishing it. there was too many mistakes and i was confused. i had a hard time following the story and that's annoying. none of the actors acted as pro even those who are suppose to be. after seeing DMX with Steven Seagal and with Jet Lee in other movies i could not believe he was involved in that farce that was a shock. it's a good thing that the movie was free, i would have regretted my money. i still regret the time i spent being all exited. actors should think before putting their names or participate in certain projects. where are the friends and the critics? MDX better get serious next time he wants to produce another movie. that people, was not good at all

don't watch this if you're expecting great acting performances. if you are from new orleans/baton rouge (well at least certain parts lol) you will recognize some of the "actors" in the movie. these are guys from the street. some are rappers, some are former drug dealers etc. the "pee wee" character is a rapper named nussie who died a few years ago. this movie is a pretty accurate portrayal of his music and real life unfortunately. laughable "acting" especially considering some of the people involved. dmx is only in it for a few minutes. i cant help but to think that maybe lou diamond and keshia knight must be in terrible financial straits to green light a movie like this.

Very funny, I got this movie by mistake, The clerks (now that is a good movie:)) at the shop accidentally put this DVD in the box of the one I wanted to see. After the first 2 minutes (already realizing it was the wrong movie) I started to believe it was a really really bad porn movie. It wasn't, just unbelievable bad. period. I tried to watch it just for the fun, but that soon seemed to be impossible. It wasn't even funny bad. Just bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. Honest i didn't know this was possible.But it was helpful in a way. Because of the absolute absence of proper lighting and acting for that matter, I know have so much more respect for 'normal'movies.

Perhaps the best indication of this film's quality lies in the fact that even DMX, who is second-billed, doesn't bother to show up long enough to have any interactions with any of the other characters; instead, he occasionally pops up as a talking head in a dark room, pontificating about life and death. Lou Diamond Phillips, who is first-billed, appears for a total of no more than 10 minutes and cashes probably the easiest paycheck of his life. Although "Death Toll" is billed as an ACTION film on IMDb, there is not even ONE small decent action sequence to be found, just a few (badly directed) shootings. Let me repeat: there is NO ACTION in this "action" movie. It's more of a drama - one, however, where all the characters are stereotypes (from the idealistic mayor - Lou - and the lazy police officers to the career-driven female assistant DA and the vulgar, mindless, illiterate drug pushers), where the dialogue cannot be followed without subtitles (either because of "da hood" lingo or because the constant rap music drowns it out), and where most of the cast is made up by rappers. The only bright spots in this positively dreadful film are the absolutely gorgeous Leila Arcieri and Keshia Knight Pulliam - if they were given more to do, I might have given "Death Toll" more than 0.5 out of 4 stars.

So to judge this movie against other movies on the whole is the mistake most would make. This is clearly a lower-tier production that would be akin to the minor league or farm system of baseball. When looked at in that context, there is a lot of positives about this movie, hence the 7 rating. I found it entertaining. In the real world I would probably give it a 2/10. DMX showed up for a day to do some spoken word DMX gangster/God/barking dog poetry. Lou Diamond I felt bad for. His scenes you can almost see by the look on his face he can't believe what it's come to. This is barely a real movie, but watchable.