CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

englishm-3 I just watched this movie on Showtime. It was entitled D.O.A. (Dead). I had no idea what to expect, so I watched it with an open mind. The first thing that caught my attention was the voice of the lead character, Paris Campbell. It was resonant, clear and articulate. Even though I had never seen him act in anything else, I could tell immediately that this was a seasoned actor, and that drew me in initially. I am not a fan of excessive violence, but despite that, I was well entertained by the level of acting done by the two lead characters. The whole movie is told through flashbacks, and even flashbacks within flashbacks. I am not a gangster or a criminal, but I could find myself identifying with both of the lead characters, and actually cared what was happening to them as the story unfolded. I loved the camaraderie they displayed, and at no time did I feel like they were just "acting". Everything seemed so real, albeit gory at times. I couldn't step away from the screen until the movie was over, and that is a rarity for me. I was grossed out, but thoroughly entertained. It kept me on the edge of my seat, and just about the time I thought I knew what was going on, they would throw in another twist. 10 out of 10!

Scarecrow-88 Distortions in reality and only slivers of truth in Jeff and Josh Crook's bloody D.O.A. which centers on a supposedly dead mobster's two bodyguards and how they attempt to uncover who killed their boss and why. From the point of view of Eddy(Paris Campbell), there are a number of possible suspects, including Youngstown mobster Al's own son, Junior(Adam Kidd) and his whore girlfriend, Lexi(Dana Perry). Eddy also comments on his unstable partner, Rock(Robert Haley), a sadist who enjoys inflicting pain and torture on anyone he believes could be responsible for the death of Al(Lou D'Amato). The problem is we are not sure if even Eddy's testimony, spoken as he is being tortured by another using a golf club, is truth or fiction. Eddy does seem to come off as an innocent bystander unable to control Rock's actions as he drowns Junior in a barrel of water wanting to know where this group of redneck bikers(nicknamed the Horde by Lexi)is located, even trying to save Lexi who promises to sweet talk the gang's leader, Spanky(Danny Ray), into letting him join! Lies beget lies as Junior and Lexi, not to mention, Al's own chauffeur, Chester(Chris Ferry), offer their own versions as to what happened to the mobster. What seems to be a recurring truth within every story told is that Al walked into a school bus serving as a meth lab triggering a bomb resulting in an explosion that killed him. It's who got him into the school bus that's more than a bit confusing and suspect. The violence is as ugly as the camera work and characters, repellent and gratuitous to the extreme. How Junior confesses about wiping out a whole bar of bikers by himself, Lexi's details of the Horde as some sort of force of nature(as well as Chester's story regarding a shoot-out with the same dreaded hicks as Al was cowering in fear behind a seat for his life) point out how preposterous each character embellishes to save their own hides. We get Eddy and Rock in a gunfight with Lexi's girl posse(equipped with machine guns for chrissakes)among other eye-opening moments(..like the visit to the "Asylum" where Eddy tries to shock Junior back to life using battery cables hooked to a running engine!)such as a beheading and a face exploding from a shot gun at close range. As expected there's plenty of foul language and nudity to go along with the graphic violence. Not for all discernible tastes, D.O.A.(DEAD ON ARRIVAL)will mostly appeal to those who like their movies as gritty and unpleasant as possible. The movie ends with a tongue being cut out to kind of clue you in on what awaits. Not one single character has any redeeming qualities, so when people continue to kill each other, I imagine viewers will care less.

piverba This is not a film to be forever written in the annals of cinematography but it is poignant tale of violence without glorification of the mob. If there is one distinctive character of this film it's it honesty. Yes, it's about cruelty, murder, vise of all kinds. It is suspenseful and unpredictable. All characters are killed, the assumptive protagonist is turned out to be a liar, similar to others, no better than the others, as it should and must be. He tells the story portraying him a reasonable person, even compassionate. Momentarily we may forget that he's an active participant of the mob, our minds are not ready to deal with complete negativity; we require a redeemer, someone positive, a counterweight to establish the equilibrium. Who triumphs? – yes, you guessed it – the boss - the most ruthless and unpretentious of them all. He's the arch-thug and does not make a secret of it. He can never be accused of being nice, he never thinks nice, nor acts nice, he does not need nor want anybody to think nice of him. He's honest. He rips out protagonist's tong because he would not tolerate lies and deceptions in his domain. This is fitting conclusion of a story of a mobster, who pretended to play the role of a 'good guy'.Often we are shown films, such as with Steven Seagal, where the protagonist, who demonstrates ruthlessness exceeding that of his opponents, somehow portraits as a positive character, avenging society. The reality is that this protagonist prevails because he was more ruthless than the 'bad guys'. We feel relieved that someone did this dirty job for us, or we feel, vicariously, to be this hero ourselves. Both feelings are deceptive – we are being manipulated to obtain inauthentic relief, like a junkie, offered a fix. Violence, if shown at all, need not to be cathartic, nor feel like pleasure, neither remembered as an agreeable experience. It should feels badly, for it is stupid and self-destructive activity, not to be indulged in.A better way to dispense with the story like this one is to pluck out the tong of the symbolic story tellers by not patronizing their films. In a way Jeff and Josh Crook did just that with regard to all this Mel Gibson's Hollywood trash. Their violence does not feel good – it feels ugly, pointless and dead; it has no future.

chicagopoetry I'm surprised that The Level went straight to video because this is actually a very deep and thought provoking gore fest in the lines of Reservoir Dogs. The entire story is told in different versions by people who are being tortured to death. We don't know who to trust and just about everything portrayed ends up being a lie. There are some extremely brutal moments here. Apparently one scene was so gory they had to censor it because they pixelated it into blurriness as a guy was getting his head hacked off with a machete. The acting is decent and the plot is sound. It's as if you took the John Travolta and Lawrence Fishborn characters from Pulp Fiction and made an ultra-violent movie all about them. I don't know if this is a gangster movie or a horror movie. The line has really been blurred here. Fans of either genre should definitely check this one out.