50
Metascore
19 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80Los Angeles TimesKevin ThomasLos Angeles TimesKevin ThomasBoiling 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.
- 60Time OutTime OutDirector 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.
- 60Chicago ReaderChicago ReaderBoiling Point essentially plays with and parodies the principle of symmetrically matching sound bites in order to create rhymes and continuities in its parallel plots.
- Ambitious thriller, which never quite lives up to its aspirations or its cast.
- 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.
- 50ReelViewsJames BerardinelliReelViewsJames BerardinelliSimply 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.
- 40The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinBoiling 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.
- 25Baltimore SunStephen HunterBaltimore SunStephen HunterThere'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.