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.
Review of Death Toll
