Boiling Point

Boiling Point is taut and crisp, and when it’s required, Harris handles violence with swift dispatch rather than the large-scale fireworks that have become de rigueur. Read full review

A smart, nicely paced crime drama, with colorful characters, compelling situations and an assured style. [17 Apr 1993, p.C3]

It's not much, Boiling Point. But it's not what you expect, either. At this time of year, when the big news is Indecent Proposal, that's saying something. [19 Apr 1993, p.C5]

Despite its title and promotion suggesting explosive action, Boiling Point is an almost leisurely thriller. It has less to do with Wesley Snipes' inner roilings than with writer-director James B. Harris' cool, sardonic view of criminology. [21 Apr 1993, p.C3]

Low-key and bland in the extreme, it’s strictly for film buffs. Read full review

Director Harris's strength is his ability to flesh out routine crime scenarios with credibly motivated characters, adding emotional depth and texture to familiar generic pleasures. That said, Snipes never quite finds the measure of his role; so, despite Hopper's unusually funny and warm performance, the final impression is tepid. Read full review

Boiling Point essentially plays with and parodies the principle of symmetrically matching sound bites in order to create rhymes and continuities in its parallel plots. Read full review

Ambitious thriller, which never quite lives up to its aspirations or its cast. Read full review

Basically, it's like a standard TV cop show with better-than-average acting and a few brief scenes of violence that would be too extreme to pass network standards...The word that comes to mind is generic. Read full review

Harris makes a valiant effort at a film noir but this work stars a hero in the kind of world where only anti-heroes play. Read full review

Simply put, Boiling Point functions as an apt definition of cinematic mediocrity, with little to laud or despise. It's the kind of motion picture you can yawn your way through without getting overly worked up about the money you lost paying the price of admission. Read full review

The assembly of fine talent is largely wasted, but you can still sense Harris staying true to his roots. [17 Apr 1993, p.C7]

Forget the title: The only time Boiling Point generates any heat is when treasury agent Jimmy Mercer (Wesley Snipes) torches his unending supply of little cigars. [19 Apr 1993, p.21]

An underwhelming cop yarn - a suspense tale whose occasionally arresting characters are far more satisfying than its workaday plot. [20 Apr 1993, p.D7]

This convoluted tale of a U.S. Treasury agent (Wesley Snipes) looking for the rats who killed one of his partners simmers along fairly well for about 45 minutes and then gets all lukewarm and fuzzy. [21 Apr 1993, p.6F]

Boiling Point is a barely tepid police story co-starring Wesley Snipes and Dennis Hopper, cast respectively as a hard-boiled detective and a wily con man. Since the material (written and directed by James B. Harris, from a novel by Gerald Petievich) offers not one shred of surprise, it's understandable that neither actor seems to believe anything he has to say. Read full review

Charismatic Snipes is shackled by his weary role, continually slinking around feeling guilty about his life and consumed by remorse for his ex-partner. Hopper flashes some sleazy snazz but, similarly, his crusty old character can barely make it through the slow dances. After criss-crosses between these weary guys in the dim of cinematographer King Baggot's dull noir lighting, audiences will reach the snoozing point. [19 Apr 1993]

Boiling Point is a bad cable movie -- USA as opposed to HBO -- temporarily masquerading as a theatrical release; even the presence of one hot actor, Wesley Snipes, can't elevate it past lukewarm status. Dennis Hopper, here reduced to an unamusing caricature of himself, further cools things down. The end result, if truth-in-titling were in effect: "Tepid Point." Read full review

There's not a moment in Boiling Point that could be said to achieve a narrative temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Boil? This limpid pool of cliche and predictability never even bubbles. Read full review