The Kill Point: Ho-Hum Cops and Robbers Help Pass the Time
Watch and Be Underwhelmed
For a mini-series with such a macho plot and so much firepower, the two episodes of Spike TV’s The Kill Point that I’ve seen thus far are fairly boring. This impression caught me by surprise because, if nothing else, I expected the usually entertaining lead duo of Emmy winner John Leguizamo (Carlito’s Way, ER, Freak, Moulin Rouge!) and Donnie Wahlberg (Band of Brothers, Boomtown, Runaway, The Sixth Sense) to at least keep me interested in their characters. Instead, Leguizamo’s depressingly miserable Mr. Wolf leaves me aching for the good old roles when the actor was often among the funniest, craziest, or most moving characters in the plot, and sometimes all three. Wahlberg, on the other hand, delivers a by now too familiar performance as a steady and intense man of the law who has the smarts to outsmart the bad guys eventually, but is currently doing his job methodically while waiting patiently for his prime opportunity. Just last year, we got a chance to see Wahlberg do almost the exact same thing, except the moderately serviceable made-for-TV movie was called Kings of South Beach then, it was on basic cable’s A&E, and it was set in sunny Florida, not urban Pittsburgh.
The plot of The Kill Point is simple and dude-friendly, in keeping with Spike TV’s target audience. A group of military veterans stage a bank robbery in Pittsburgh, which swiftly gets out of control when a patron who also happens to be an FBI agent decides to play the heroine in order to prevent the bad guys from escaping unscathed. Her gunfire initiates a prolonged street shootout that seems to last about thirty minutes. Cornered, the still-standing robbers retreat back into the bank, where they proceed to hold hostage the dozen or so dimwits who were too dumb to flee with the smart people who dashed out the back entrance as soon as the bullets started flying. Hostage negotiator extraordinaire Horst Cali (Wahlberg) and his fellow keepers of the peace arrive with haste and quickly learn that Mr. Wolf and his team are not only unyielding war veterans, but intent to remain out of jail. The dilemma then becomes how to bargain with someone who would very clearly rather die than give in.
The Kill Point is not so much boring television as unnecessary television. I can’t imagine why the medium would need yet another crime-laden drama about tortured felons and their game of wits with the lawmen on their heels, especially one that clocks in at eight hours. In fact, the aspect of the series that most intrigues me is how the been-there, seen-that plot is going to manage to sustain viewer interest for six more episodes. The writers have obviously tried to spice things up through the supporting characters, which most notably include perennially creepy Tobin Bell (Jigsaw/John Kramer in the blood-drenched Saw saga, the second and third installments of which also feature Wahlberg) as a manipulative Donald Trump-like real estate mogul whose brash college-aged daughter Ashley (Christine Evangelista) is among the hostages. Are an equally self-involved Trump doppelganger and the other secondary cast members enough to elevate The Kill Point beyond merely watchable to appointment worthy? Not for me; but, then, I’ve already seen Dog Day Afternoon, and I’m not a dude.
The Verdict: B-
The Kill Point currently airs Sundays on Spike TV at 9pm EST, with a two-hour series finale scheduled for Sunday, August 26
The Kill Point photo courtesy of Spike TV
