When an attempted bank robbery goes wrong, it turns into a hostage situation.  As the police negotiator tries to get the hostages released, other outside groups try to figure out ways to free the hostages or the robbers.

CRITIQUE

The Kill Point is a Spike TV miniseries, basically 8 hour-long episodes that here, commercial free, clock in at about 5 hours and 40 minutes long.  The result is interesting in that this gives the creators a lot of time to really explore the characters and the situations; on the downside, this is an awful long time to sustain a bank hostage drama, and there are some eye-rolling plot twists here at times.  Still, this often works well, and though it’s not great, it holds together well for what it is.

There are two main characters here.  “Mr. Wolf” (John Leguizamo) is an Iraq veteran who leads some of his old platoon members on the robbery, which goes wrong very quickly, as they get into a shoot-out on the way out of the bank and have to retreat back inside.  Leguizamo does a good job keeping Mr. Wolf likable; though what he is doing is hard to justify, he’s a nicely-ambiguous thief with a backstory that helps flesh him out, and Leguizamo dominates all the scenes he is in.

The other main character is his counterpart, hostage negotiator Horst Cali, played by Donnie Wahlberg.  The former backstreet boy does a good job here, giving Horst a likable gravitas that plays well (though an early running gag about his being grammar-obsessed wears thin quickly, and is wisely dropped.

But the supporting characters are all cast well as well, and the miniseries really takes time to develop a lot of minor characters, from the hostages to the hostage-takers to the SWAT team members and others who pop up along the way, and as the characters become more and more vivid as the episodes go on, it’s easy to get caught up in this.  Also helping is the fact that the writers keep things spinning, basically turning this into a string of sequences in which just about every way to approach a bank hostage drama seems to be touched on along the way, while the series does a good job making one wonder how something might be accomplished, and then answering that question pretty well.

What ultimately hurts this is the fact that it does feel long, and it drags at times, particularly in the first few episodes.  There are also some real logic problems here, especially in terms of the bank, which seems to have the worst security ever.  Not only does it have no protective windows for the tellers and a vault that can be opened and closed without ever locking, but there is a huge basement underneath and a vent in one of the hallway floors, while there is also a power box in a stall in one of the bathrooms, easy access for someone looking to turn off the lights at one point.  The climax also goes on a little long; it feels too much like they sometimes had to really stretch things to fill up the time requirements that they had.

Still, there is something appealing about this, Leguizamo and Wahlberg have a good rapport, and there are enough twists and turns to keep one guessing about what is going to happen next.  Worth a look.

THE VIDEO

The Kill Point is presented in 16x9 widescreen.  Despite it having the budget limitations of TV, the result generally looks crisp enough.

THE AUDIO

The Kill Point is presented in English 5.1 Dolby Digital.  Dialogue, music and sound effects come through clear.  There are English and Spanish subtitles.

THE EXTRAS

There are 17 one-to-two-minute Interviews with the actors (19 different ones) in which they talk about their characters, in short pieces that originally aired on Spike TV.  It’s sort of interesting/amusing how much more story some of the minor actors have for their characters than is actually in the series.

FINAL THOUGHTS