Boiling Point ** (1993, Wesley Snipes, Dennis Hopper, Viggo Mortensen, Valerie Perrine, Lolita Davidovich, Seymour Cassel, Dan Hedaya, Tony Lo Bianco) – Classic Movie Review 12,933

James B Harris’s 1993 American action film Boiling Point has a great cast but is a merely routine B-movie thriller. It stars Wesley Snipes, Dennis Hopper, Viggo Mortensen, Seymour Cassel, Dan Hedaya and Tony Lo Bianco

Writer/ director James B Harris’s 1993 American action film Boiling Point stars Wesley Snipes, Dennis Hopper, Viggo Mortensen, Valerie Perrine, Lolita Davidovich, along with Seymour Cassel, Dan Hedaya, Jonathan Banks, Christine Elise, Tony Lo Bianco, James Tolkan, and Paul Gleason.

It’s a great cast but a merely routine B-movie thriller with Wesley Snipes and Dan Hedaya as US Treasury Agents on the trail of a couple of crooks (Dennis Hopper, Viggo Mortensen) who kill their undercover buddy for small-time money, then kill again as they go for bigger bucks.

This intriguing film by long-time Stanley Kubrick associate Harris (he produced the 1956 gem The Killing) has evident aspirations and intelligence, and is not bad. It’s just that it never reaches anything like boiling point. Snipes makes very little of a dully written hero role as the usual lawman wanting reconciliation with his wife and kids.

But Hopper makes a decent meal of his ageing recidivist act, trying to get together with an old flame (Valerie Perrine) and spending the night with a tart with a heart (Lolita Davidovich). Hopper even makes this unpleasant character, with his penchant for 1940s dance music, quite touching, so that you actually feel for him when the chips are down and he says: ‘What’s the use, you can’t fucking win!’

The particularly intriguing cast is largely wasted on what just isn’t a rattling good B-movie yarn. And nor is it rivetingly handled. The pauses for long dialogue scenes help build character and depth, but dissipate the tension and hold up the action.

It was released in the US on 16 April 1993.

It was James B Harris’s last film. His screenplay is based on the novel Money Men by former US Secret Service agent Gerald Petievich,

The cast are Wesley Snipes as US Treasury Agent Jimmy Mercer, Dennis Hopper as Rudolph “Red” Diamond, Lolita Davidovich as Vikki Dunbar, Viggo Mortensen as Ronnie, Dan Hedaya as US Treasury Agent Sam Brady, Seymour Cassel as Virgil Leach, Jonathan Banks as Max Waxman, Christine Elise as Carol, Tony Lo Bianco as Tony Dio, Valerie Perrine as Mona, James Tolkan as Senior US Treasury Agent Jerry Levitt, Paul Gleason as Michael, The Transaction Man, Lorraine Evanoff as Connie, Stephanie E Williams as Sally Mercer, Tobin Bell as Freddie Roth, and Bobby Hosea as Steve.

Tony Lo Bianco stars in The Honeymoon Killers (1970), The French Connection (1971), The Seven-Ups (1973), God Told Me To (1976), Jesus of Nazareth (1977), Bloodbrothers, City Heat, City of Hope, Boiling Point (1993), Nixon, The Juror and Somewhere in Queens (2022), his final film role.

Tony Lo Bianco [Anthony LoBianco] (October 19, 1936 – June 11, 2024) is best remembered for starring in the crime films The Honeymoon Killers (1970), The French Connection (1971), and The Seven-Ups (1973).

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 12,933

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