Smallscreen Reviews
Spike makes its bones with 'The Kill Point'
By April MacIntyre
Aug 17, 2007, 0:20 GMT

Spike TV, not usually known for riveting drama, has a white hot series “The Kill Point,”  a surprise summer hit which I caught up watching back episodes at the Spike website. The miniseries is homage to the great hostage genre classics like "Dog Day Afternoon."

Like the classic film “Heat” starring De Niro and Pacino, “Kill Point” stars John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg, their characters pitted against each other in a psychological test of wills and a non-stop pace of action too. 

The two men are on opposite sides of the law - one a hostage specialist detective; the other a thief – both with a band of sympathetic brothers to help them.

"The Kill Point" is an eight-hour miniseries that ends August 26th,  it centers on a tense standoff as a group of Iraq veterans turned robbers take hostages in a Pittsburgh bank, trying to figure out some way to evade the police who surround them.

Donnie Wahlberg, who plays police negotiator Horst Cali, is a Pittsburgh Police Department Hostage Negotiator who must negotiate with “Mr. Wolf”,  Leguizamo’s troubled anti-hero.

Wolf plays the media like a violin; he works his Iraq war veteran status effectively for sympathy before the news cameras, stripping down to show battle scars as he talks about how combat soldiers were passed over and mistreated.

Like all great hostage dramas, time is ticking, and Cali must manage the situation for the victims, one a daughter of one of the richest men in Pittsburgh, whose interfering ways could muck up police efforts.

Complications arise as one of Wolf’s guys escapes to round up more of Wolf's combat troops, with a domestic urban assault in mind.

“Kill Point” consists of many layers of human drama, and subtlety of right and wrong, the action is systematically planned and the writing is executed perfectly.  The casting is spot on, as both Leguizamo and Wahlberg shine in this series.

Spike has turned a corner, "Kill Point's" writer James DeMonaco (The Negotiator) and director Steve Shill (The Tudors, Rome), have established the cable network as a player for quality drama, joining big boys FX, USA, MOJO, TNT, Sci Fi, A&E and several other cablers as a quality alternative to stale and uninspiring network fare, the bulk of their programming an endless reality series parade.