User Reviews

Along with Bob Marley and Bunny Wailer, Peter Tosh was a primary composer of "The Wailers" music catalog and played a major role in increasing reggae's popularity beyond the West Indies.

Tosh is an electrifying icon, a fierce force, and certainly didn't deserve the fate that was dealt to him in 1987. Who conspired to instigate such an evil act? Why did such an enormous revolutionary figure have to be submitted to such a sudden, misguided tragedy? These questions will be debated for centuries, and you can compile your own theories from the clues offered in Stepping Razor: Red X - (1992).

Tosh didn't deserve to die the way he did (brutally beaten & shot by members of the corrupt sector)...and his musical legacy is one that easily outlasts the reggae majority. His forceful speeches, magnetism, and divine activism aimed at social change led many to worship his very being (just as they did Marley). He was truly on his way to greatness...and should be remembered & honored always for not only his music, but also for his vision...to give the free world back to the people shackled by tyranny, deceit and diseased politics...

When reggae star Peter Tosh was murdered in his Jamaican home in 1987, he left behind a legacy of not only his brilliant music, but also a legacy of his political struggles for equal rights and justice in Jamaica. The no less brilliant 1992 Canadian documentary, "Stepping Razor: Red X", evocatively captures the spirit of a man who was as passionate as he was controversial. Like the last thoughts of a dying man, the film zips through 104 minutes, recounting incident after incident, without ever losing hold of the viewer's attention. Director Nicholas Campbell seamlessly weaves together interviews, concert footage and surreal recreations of the murder, to bring Peter Tosh back from the dead for at least a short period of time.

The film begins with a recounting of the murder, and we see several friends of Tosh's theorizing about the motives and who they believe could be behind it. We then jump to interviews with Tosh's parents talking about when he was a kid. The film recounts Tosh's life, while side tracking to explore the various issue that Tosh was concerned with such as the legalization of marijuana, police brutality, and ghetto poverty. Throughout, we see eerie images of the murder. What makes the film even more eerie is that it is narrated by Tosh himself. Campbell used the actual "Red X" tapes (named after the fact that whenever Tosh saw his name on a government document , it was marked with a red X) that Tosh was working on from 1984 until his death. These tapes were basically a spoken word autobiography. Campbell compliments Tosh's voice over with rapid images of the Jamaican landscape. Some times the camera races through the streets of Kingston, and sometimes it races through Tosh's own house, letting us see what Tosh saw in his everyday life.

What makes "Stepping Razor: Red X" so special is that it works on many levels. It is a documentary on Peter Tosh's life, it is an investigation into his death, it is a concert film, it is a tribute to reggae music, is a celebration of freedom of expression. It is all these things, yet it never seems cluttered. The film is like a vivid dream: it's so short but it means so much. It's sad that this is one of only two films by Campbell as a director. He makes his living as an actor, currently starring as the title character in the somewhat cheesy CBC drama, "Da Vinci's Inquest". I guess he needs the money. I can't wait until he pockets enough to make another film.

This tragic documentary tell the tale of the all too short life of one of the greatest country men in the world Peter Tosh. Told by interviews with his mother , father and friends it charts the meteoric rise to fame of Peter from "The Wailing Wailer" to "The Wailers" , his disillusionment with Marley and the pro christian stance that Marley took in his music to his solo career and his fights with various record labels. It ends in an all too familiar tone with the execution of Peter by some thieves in his house and the chilling words that from a young man Tosh thought would be the last he ever heard "bumbaclat" , and the sicking joke that these were indeed the last he heard before a bullet ended his great life. Its a very hard to watch documentary for it shows the gap that has been left in so may lifes and echos the murder of King Tubby in 1988 for similar reasons. Watch this and find a glimpse of a great man