The Kill Point

My husband and I really like this program. We cannot wait for each episode to find out what happens next. The writing is better than a lot of TV shows today, the acting is good, and the suspense level is high. As an English teacher, I love that Wahlberg's character cannot stand poor grammar. The fact that the lead bank robber, Leguizamo, is a bank robber with a heart and feelings reminds me that this is only a TV show and not reality. Although the bank robbers are former solders who served in Iraq, I am sure they will be dealt with on a terrorist-type level. There are enough twists and turns to keep my interest and make me want to tune-in every week. Boo to the nay sayers! Keep it going.

By and large TV mini-series are horrible little things, plagued by low production values and actors that barely qualify as B-list. Occasionally you see a Stephen King story pop up that is told fairly well, but other than that the field is sparse with anything of decent quality. Because of this, the Kill Zone deserves special attention for what it is - an extremely well produced piece of television that falls more in line with a moderately low budget movie than the typical TV mini-series you run into.

The acting is top notch, Leguizamo and Wahlberg(who looks exactly like Bruce Willis circa 1990 oddly) deliver performances worthy of any film and the rest of the cast who are primarily unknowns(except for an appearance by Wahlberg's Saw 2 nemesis, Jigsaw himself, Tobin Bell) all fill their purpose more than adequately.

Unfortunately it does has its share of flaws, otherwise it wouldn't be stuck on a mediocre cable network as a mini series to begin with. Primarily there are a number of plot holes and quite a few issues of improbable occurrences(a massive fire fight between two heavily armed forces that results in the casualty of not one character central to the story for example), so basically the stuff you can typically lay at the foot of any action oriented movie, series, or other.

The basic story however is quite solid, and has multiple layers presented to keep it from just being some guys holding hostages in a bank for 8 hours straight. While some of these lines are never taken to their true potential(primarily Tobin Bell's involvement) in favor of keeping the focus on Leguizamo and Wahlberg's interaction, for the most part they serve their purpose.

All in all, you have to look at this series for what it is. A mini-series on Spike with a moderate budget at best. And for what it has going for it, it is damn good and a solid 8 hours of entertainment. And really, what more can we ask from our TVs? Not everything need be a masterpiece.

I was channel surfacing one night and fell headlong into this film. The reason I stayed and checked it out was due to the explosive action and the quick developing drama. Pulling up a chair, I continued to watch as it looked interesting and the major character was someone I recognized immediately from other action movies. I eventually gleaned from the episode that a group of Iraq Era Ex-soldiers has assembled and planned to rob a bank. Their leader was known as Mr. Wolf (John Leguzamo) That immediately gave me reason to return for the next episode. The good guy of the movie was also a notable actor in his own right. The Captain of the S.W.A.T team and main negotiator was known as Cali Horst (Donnie Wahlberg). They along with several other notable actors made the series plausible and entertaining. What developed in the story however was a character creating situation which continued to evolve into a rather standard and dull situation. From modern directors I expect something different. This film started out reminiscent of "Ocean's Eleven" but soon froze into a 'Petrified Forest' remake. It also contains several plastic stereotypes, which bent over backwards trying not to insult any religious, ethnic, or sexual element. After watching the last episode, I was wrong in my initial assessment. Had it not been for Leguzamo, this movie would have been written off as "Same Old, Same Old.' As it is, he made it worth finishing, disappointing as it was. ***

A quiet working day in the centre of Pittsburgh is momentarily disrupted when a group of masked armed men walk into a bank and, with ruthless efficiency rob it and leave within minutes. However a passing cop, a security van and an FBI agent all come together at the wrong moment for the gang and the result is a gun battle in the street. Retreating back into the bank, the groups leader, Mr Wolf immediately sets up a hostage situation and prepares to defend the bank. Outside, Police negotiator Horst Cali learns that he is facing a group of Iraq veterans and political pressure starts to mount on him and his working style.

This got a bit of a mention in The Times and Guardian and it made me decide to check it out. Although it was not brilliant, the show was short enough both in terms of running time of each episode (if you forward the adverts) and the overall season (eight episodes). To be honest the main thing that grabbed me about it was that it does seem to have been somewhat of an acting "busman's holiday" for a chunk of the cast of HBO's brilliant The Wire. Sadly the overriding thought in my head seeing so many of them together in one place was that it is genuinely unlikely any will ever have work that good again, but still it was nice to see them. On The Kill Point itself, the series throws the viewer right into the bank job and the first episode is pretty frantic. In the style of 24 it tries to keep this up and some episodes do really well on it, but it does have frequent and clunky dips in pace that frustrate.

These aside, it must also be said that the whole series is not quite a great example of how to maintain pace and deliver within a thriller. The themes surrounding Iraq are held up like billboards rather than woven into the story and characters and likewise some emotional content is ham-fisted in delivery and just serves to suck dramatic tension out of the series rather than increasing it by adding depth. That said it still functions at a level that the majority will find distracting, if never really gripping. The direction gives proceedings tension but somehow never nails "urgency" in the way that I wanted.

The cast back up the "solid but not special" feel that the whole thing has, with reasonable performances from reasonable actors. Leguizamo leads the cast well with the strongest performance and character, getting the conflict and urgency in his character. Wahlberg is nearly as good when given the material but his grammar pedantry is nonsense (his own dialogue is full of "less" instead of "fewer" and such) and it is a crass quirk that doesn't work. Davidson is satisfyingly unhinged and works well with Grillo's incredibly buff (and I say this as a straight guy) and charming performance. The Wire's Fitzpatrick and JD Williams are both good but don't have much to do – the latter in particular quite hard to watch as he doesn't have a lot to get his teeth into in the way he did in The Wire. Although really this could be said of all of them but not in the same way. Hyatt has more time on screen than in The Wire (where she was Avon's sister) but she is not that good with it and she cannot get her character to work. Conversely Michael Williams seems to be unable to escape the wonderful character of Omar, although fan that I am, this is not a bad thing really. He has dialogue that could have been given to Omar (with a bit of tightening) but for the majority of the series he appears to be in his own show, totally detached in terms of plot and material from the rest of the goings-on! Enough "The Wire" chat though, I am conscious that I am already a bore on the subject, but the connection does add a novelty value to this show that it probably doesn't deserve. On its own terms, The Kill Point doesn't totally work but it has enough trash appeal to just about make it worth seeing if you want a couple of months of disposable distraction. It is far from being Dog Day Afternoon (although it has a touch of that), it lacks the urgency and pace of 24 (when it is good) and the writing lets it sag far too often for its own good but for the undemanding viewer it might just do the job.

I just finished watching the pilot myself. I couldn't help but think how well done this was.

"The Nine" had a similar premise, but it fell flat of expectations. "The Kill Point," by contrast, was tautly suspenseful, was laden with brilliantly crafted characters, and brought the sublime talents of Donnie Wahlberg and John Leguizamo to the forefront.

The writing made you actually feel for the characters, both "good" and "bad." Wahlberg and Leguizamo play off each other perfectly in a cat-and-mouse hostage game which, at least, kept me guessing as to how it was all going to play out.

Even the smaller details, like the cinematography and music, the colors used by the production designer, the little quirks of all the characters, make this story feel so real despite the implausibility of it all.

This is a show well worth watching, and I can't imagine not loving every moment of this truly intelligent miniseries. In the end, I wish more shows were done this well.