24-lite for the ADHD Generation

The Content

If it hadn't been cast out of the television lexicon for being a dirty term that conjured images of schmaltzy Danielle Steele epics and trashy Stephen King dramas, The Kill Point would be called a miniseries. But because no-one makes miniseries anymore, it's just a series - albeit one that begins and concludes in the space of eight regulation length 40-minute episodes. In the first TV drama to be commissioned by stateside 'boy's own' network Spike (previously Spike TV), John Leguizamo and Donnie Wahlberg are joined by half of the supporting cast of HBO's superb The Wire (shared production team, duh!) and a host of familiar small-screen talent as The Kill Point follows the (mis)fortunes of a groups of ex-military men involved in bank-heist gone wrong in downtown Pittsburgh, and the negotiator brought in to pour water on the flames of the developing siege crisis.



Leguizamo plays Mr Wolf, who, along with his similarly-stagenamed ex-squaddy chums, attempt to stage a heist in a local branch of the Three Rivers bank. It goes Pete Tong - and a little Michael Mann - as they inevitably do, and the former Marines find themselves holed up inside with a gaggle of hostages. Mr Wolf then uses the opportunity to turn a straight-laced bank job into a spot of political propaganda, while hostage negotiator and right old grammar-Nazi Horst Cali (Wahlberg) is calling the shots on the outside as the city's finest set up shop for a back and forth game of demands and mind games.



All the usual heist/hostage clichés are here - Stockholm syndrome, attempted coups, dressing the hostages as robbers, the elitist FBI messing everything up, the hero with the baby on the way - along with an Iraq War-flavoured social commentary, these elements themselves likely to become ever-present platitudes if the fighting in the Middle East holds up much longer, but the show is nothing if not consistently entertaining. Like much of Spike TV's popular output - professional wrestling, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Blade: The Series - The Kill Point found its heavily-trailed home in the UK on satellite channel Bravo, and has barely finished airing as the two-disc DVD set hits shelves. Despite picking up respectable viewing figures on both sides of the Atlantic, Spike declined to renew it for a second season, leaving it twisting in the wind as the aforementioned non-miniseries.

The Disc

Anamorphic 1.78:1, the transfer is far better than broadcast quality, with much of the sharpness, richness, clean lines and general fidelity of your average blockbuster on disc. The Kill Point even goes that step further by having virtually no noise whatsoever, making this one of the best examples of US TV on DVD in a long time.

Sound-wise, we get a beautifully clear Dolby Digital 5.1 at 448kbps. While the surround soundstage isn't exactly set ablaze, there is modest use of steering during set-pieces and you're unlikely to ever need to flick on the optional English subs to hear what a character is saying.

The only extras are a selection of very short promo interviews with the cast spread over both discs.

The Opinion

Spike may not have liked The Kill Point enough to write a cheque for a sophomore season, but if I was handing out the shekels for the network (a job I'd be really good at, trust me), I'd have had enough faith in its characters and execution to realise it was a big win for the channel and its demographic. It's fairly compelling with that "one more episode before bed" effect, slick and impressively made, and anchored by two relative heavyweights in Leguizamo and Wahlberg. That said, this is Spike, not HBO or Showtime, so don't go looking for incredible character development or envelope pushing at every opportunity. It's not a challenging drama and it only goes places people have been before, and could be accused of spreading itself a little thin, but when half of their Nielsen figures come from the oily men prancing around in pyjamas, we have to be thankful for such a straight talking, entertaining series. The fact that not once do the protagonists piledrive each other is simply a bonus.