The Kill Point opens with a bank robbery gone wrong. When you have nearly a dozen cops and robbers emptying their clips at each other, and nobody is getting wounded, you know you’re in for some trouble. These guys make the A-Team look like master sharpshooters. But I digress. Once the bank robbery is botched, the hapless customers become the hostages of Mr. Wolf (John Leguizamo) and his band of Iraqi war vets turned criminals. Brought in to secure the safe release of the hostages is Horst Cali (Donnie Wahlberg), Pittsburgh Police Department’s top negotiator.

What follows is a nine-part series chronicling the efforts of the police to release the hostages and of the criminals to get away with their crimes without arrest or being killed. As the siege drags on for days, both sides begin to show signs of fatigue. The robbers begin to turn on each other, the hostages concoct various schemes to liberate themselves, mild doses of the Stockholm Syndrome emerge, and the police generally act like buffoons, save for our hero and his closest confidants.  After all, they’re mavericks and play by their own rules, and perhaps they aren’t much different than their adversaries.

Created by Spike Television, The Kill Point is an attempt to fashion an edgy, action drama that utilizes the extended boundaries of basic cable, yet hews to the safe-as-milk formula of a Stephen J. Cannell production. The results are mixed at best. The plot and the attempts to humanize both cops and robbers are laughably inane.  Furthermore, by attempting to flesh out the story the length of nine prime time episodes, the entire enterprise becomes simply absurd. I understand that one needs a certain suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy something like this, but you’d have to be a permanent passenger on the shortbus not to break your wrist going for the ‘yeah right’ every ten minutes. It’s simply inconceivable that cops, in this current age of terrorism, would allow a hostage siege to go on for days. It’s highly unlikely these days that the cops would allow the so-called mastermind of the operation to strut around out front of the bank to harangue the cops and generate sympathy with the local media. In one of the more ridiculous sub-plots, Twin Peaks alumnus Dana Ashbrook is trapped in a janitor’s closet with a comely b actress that he’s been getting down with. For several episodes, they bond in the closet, only to be discovered as they try to escape through the ventilation shaft. They join the rest of the hostages and that’s it. What could have been a potential wild card is just orphaned. In an effort to pad this out into nine episodes, every hostage-film cliché is plundered and no inane plot contrivance is too wacky to consider.  This could have been a decent made-for-television movie, but instead, it tries to be the Berlin Alexanderplatz of action dramas.

What’s even worse is that The Kill Point attempts to interject political commentary into the proceedings. As Leguizamo is a disgruntled vet leading his former platoon in the robbery, there is a considerable amount of pontificating about how the government screws over Iraqi war veterans once they return home. It seems that Leguizamo refused an order that would have killed his men, as a result, he was stripped of his veteran’s benefits, and subsequently, his wife died because he couldn’t afford her treatment. In his “Attica from Dog Day Afternoon” moment, Leguizamo bares his doughy chest to show his war scars to the crowd assembled outside the bank. It’s one thing to try to generate sympathy for vets who are getting the shaft, but it’s another thing to beat this message over the viewers’ heads. It goes beyond being merely didactic to bludgeoning sympathy from viewers who have only rapidly become desensitized to the program’s political content.

The acting in The Kill Point is varied. Former New Kid on the Block Donnie Wahlberg is competent, but doesn’t convey the required amount of gravitas for somebody in his position. And his appearance is rather absurd, with his hair lacquered back and a perpetual five o’clock shadow, he looks like Eddie Munster after a three-day bender.  Leguizamo brings his usual intensity to a thankless role and for the most part, his scenes are the easiest to digest. The supporting characters do well with what they are given, but they are such bizarre roles. Michael Hyatt plays an African-American lesbian SWAT team leader who promised her partner that she would lay off donuts. Leo Fitzpatrick, who has done some stellar work with Hal Hartley, plays Mr. Mouse, a budding cartoonist turned soldier/bank robber. There are two members of the SWAT team, one of whom is named Hawk, who look like they got lost on the way to a Village People tribute band audition. The one cast member who seems to grasp the caliber of the material they’re working with is Tobin Bell (Jigsaw from the Saw films), who plays an amoral captain of industry whose daughter is among the hostages.

When all is said and done, The Kill Point isn’t the worst thing you could watch. But when there are so many better hostage films, better bank heist films and better Wahlbergs to watch, why would you want to?

Presentation
Liongate’s release of The Kill Point is presented in a fairly clear 1.78:1 anamorphic image that is representative of the program’s broadcast origins.  Audio options are strictly English in Dolby Digital 5.1. It sounds nice, but as the sound is almost exclusively dialogue punctuated with infrequent gunfire, your eardrums aren’t exactly bursting with fruit flavor, but they’re not offended either. English and Spanish subtitles are included, as is English closed captioning for the hearing impaired.

Extras
The only extra to speak of on this disc is a collection of interviews with the various actors who star in The Kill Point. These are merely recycled propaganda pieces used to convince viewers to tune in and do little to enhance the viewing experience. 

The Bottom Line
Spike TV recently announced that they would no longer be producing original drama for their network, choosing instead to rely on reality shows and pro wrestling. Viewing this attempt at original drama, I can understand why they might choose to run the other way. The Kill Point is not terribly original and not terribly good. There are bright spots to be found in some of the acting, but overall, life is too short to spend nearly six hours of your life watching this.