The Kill Point: dans la ligne de mire

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.

What can I say, I never thought this cast could pull it off. I've tuned into every episode and it keeps me wanting more every time.

I thought the plot was impossible at first but then as I watched, I realized what an excellent job they've done at making this show realistic and intense.

If you dislike this show, then obviously you have a different taste for drama. This show provides a twist to the bank heist shows/movies we've seen in the past.

John Leguizamo as a lead cast member is excellent. He's really captured the dramatic and intense nature of the character he portrays. Never thought he could do it!

As for Donnie Walhberg, well if you haven't noticed since this is a Lions Gate production, they do have they favourites they like to use. (Anyone notice jigsaw :-P) Anyhow I've become a fan of Donnie after seeing his performance in a few recent flicks. He's come a long way from the New Kids On The Block days!

Gotta love Lions Gate as they keep coming out with some unique products lately that the audience hasn't seen before!

Good Job!

ironically this and the negotiator were on the same night, both written by the same writer and both kick ass, dialog between Donnie

and john is very cool sounding and enjoyable, also the action is pretty fun, kinda has a heat feel to it and point break but u really seem to get to know and understand the robbers and the police and feel for them i don't get the feeling of a generic back robber movie, maybe thats because this is a TV movie, and they can suck, but who knows they seem to have improved with TV (anyone catch burn notice THAT SHOW ROCKS) and action TV seems to be on a rise, thank god,so for good action and good characters watch this while its still on, for it is a limited series

I only discover it now, although it was aired in France ten years ago. What a terrific mini series. It is certainly not in France that such a story could have been told. See for yourself; a story where veterans, war vets, openly talk against their own country, against their own government. That's certainly not in France that such a tale could have been shown. In America, the main advantage compared to France, is that you can talk about ANYTHING if it makes money. Period. In France, that's not the same. The channel who produce such a topic would have IRS inspectors the following day dig into their accounts...See what I mean? The director Yves Boisset was the victim of such a system. France, human rights country and its hypocrisy. And I am French. So, that said, back to this terrific series, you can think of RESERVOIR DOGS, HEAT and TAKING OF PELHAM 123...And it is obvious that such a story is far better made for TV show, than for theatrical release in a two hours feature. In a series, you have plenty of time and room to emphasize on characters and develop situations, with plenty of characters. The gunfight in the subway tunnel, however, in the sixth episode, is rather corny, totally unbelievable.

I am surprised it was produced by James De Monaco, the director of American NIGTMARE series crap, for the big screen this time.

Good characters study here, thanks to the series concept. The main drawback, weak point, is the fire fights sequences. The characters shoot tons of ammo without even changing the barrels of their weapons. I don't speak of the absence of impacts on most cars and walls during the shootings, at least the last one, not the first, involving the SWAT team trying to get into the bank, which is the best gun battle of the entire show. I don't understand why the film makers don't care about such important détails, which are nothing to be cared about. That remains childish to argue about this but, sorry, that upsets me.