Boiling Point
Wesley Snipes deserves a lot more respect & so do you and I
Boiling Point felt like a movie I’ve watched before on a Saturday afternoon on TNT, but I couldn’t quite place it, so I kept watching.
That may not be a glowing recommendation, but it’s a stellar cast with Wesley Snipes, Dennis Hopper, Dan Hedaya, Viggo Mortensen, Jonathan Banks, Lolita Davidovich, Paul Gleason and so many others.
The film was directed by James B. Harris, a frequent collaborator with Stanley Kubrick, notably working together on The Killing, Paths of Glory, and Lolita. Born in 1928, he originally worked as a producer on the aforementioned films, and several others.
He eventually went on to direct five of his own films, The Bedford Incident (1965), Some Call It Loving (1973), Fast-Walking (1982), Cop (1988), and Boiling Point. My favorite of the bunch is Cop, starring James Woods, a troubled cop. It’s sleazy, dark and based on Elmore Leonard’s Blood On the Moon.
Pulling back to Boiling Point, it’s said that the movie was originally titled Money Man, based on a book by Gerald Petievich, a real life Secret Service Agent. The film was severely re-edited to capitalize on Wesley Snipes’ recent success with Passenger 57. James B. Harris said, “My picture was not that kind of a movie. It was more cerebral… They wanted an action movie, so they changed the name to Boiling Point, they designed the ads that looked like Wesley Snipes was going to blow away the whole police force or the whole criminal world.”
Dennis Hopper has said it was one of his favorite roles that he ever did, but most of his performance ended up on the cutting room floor. It would be interesting to see that version of the film (if it exists).
But moving on to Wesley Snipes, every time he’s on the screen I’m drawn in. Even if the dialogue isn’t great, he just sells it with raw charisma. Whatever place Snipes lives in your mind, he deserves so much more than that as an actor and action star.
Looking at his greats, there’s a long list: Major League, New Jack City, Jungle Fever, White Men Can’t Jump, Passenger 57, Drop Zone, Demolition Man, U.S. Marshals, and one of my favorites that I rewatch every year, Blade.
Even his lesser vehicles like Murder at 1600, The Art of War, The Fan, Money Train and Rising Sun are great watches. I didn’t purposely leave off To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar, I just somehow have never seen it and need to correct that, very soon.
Speaking of Money Train, his pairing with Woody Harrelson, following up White Men Can’t Jump, makes me feel like we were robbed of more buddy films with the two. Just imagining a 5 film run of like 20 years and just how great it would’ve felt to have these two legends together. Our reality sucks.
Of course Wesley’s career was put on hold due to tax evasion.
He was charged with conspiring to defraud the United States and knowingly making or aiding and abetting the making of a false and fraudulent claim for payment against the United States. Snipes was also charged with willfully failing to file timely federal income tax returns. The conspiracy charge against Snipes alleged that he agreed with Kahn and Rosile to file false amended returns for 1996 and 1997, including false tax refund claims totaling over $11.3 million for the two years. The government alleged that Snipes, and associates, attempted to obtain fraudulent tax refunds using a tax protestor theory called the “861 Argument” (an argument that the domestic income of US citizens and residents is not taxable).
The indictment also charged that Snipes failed to file tax returns for any of the years 1999 through 2004. Snipes responded to his indictment in a letter on December 4, 2006, declaring himself to be “a non-resident alien” of the United States; in reality, Snipes is a U.S. Citizen by birth.
Anywho, in 2008, he was sentenced to three years in prison, but his business associates & co-defendants, Douglas P. Rosile and Eddie Ray Kahn, were convicted and received harsher sentences. Wesley Snipes reported to federal prison at the end of 2010 and served 28 months. He finished his last few months under house arrest and was finally fully released in July 19, 2013.
He went on to star in Expendables 3 in 2014, reunited with Spike Lee for Chi-Raq in 2015, and has worked consistently since then, but not at the level of his former cinematic peak. He would show up as Blade again in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine.
Let’s talk about something else…
Hard pivot I know, but possibly in line with not paying your bills, maybe?
I wanted to highlight an article I wrote that should be out by the time you read all of this. I’m certain if you live in North Carolina, you may be aware of your rising electricity and gas bills from Duke Energy. I dug into that a little and found some troubling information.
In my piece for Queen City Nerve, I tried to stay away from editorializing, but since this is a Substack, I don’t feel too bad about it here.
Duke Energy was found guilty of stealing money from customers and overcharging. The company reported nearly $5 billion dollars in profits in 2025. There will be no refunds back to the consumer due to a statute that passed by the NC legislature. Liz McLaughlin of WRAL did some excellent reporting on the subject.
Our state politicians appear to be receiving money from Duke Energy in order to pass laws in favor of the poorly regulated monopoly. The more I dug into it, the more ridiculous it all seemed to be. NC Attorney General Jeff Jackson, at the time of my reporting, doesn’t seem to be doing anything about it. Basically, that ship has sailed. Not only will you not get refunds, you can also expect to see bill increases into 2030, due to the building of AI data centers.
To which I ask, can you not use some of that $5 billion dollar profit, instead of pushing so much of it over to the consumer?
This part was cut from my piece, so I’m including it here:
Meanwhile, when a consumer defrauds the corporation, Duke Energy and the justice system will react to the full extent of the law. Deputies in Wake County arrested three individuals in an ongoing investigation where numerous accounts were opened in the name of living and deceased customers without their knowledge, costing the company $495,904.62 in losses. The charges include three counts of felony identity theft and one count of felony conspiracy, Four counts of obtaining property by false pretense valued at $100,000 or more, One count of obtaining property by false pretense, Five counts of financial transaction fraud, Five counts of accessing computers, 19 counts of identity theft, nine counts of exploitation of an older or disabled adult from a position of trust, nine counts of identity theft, one count of felony conspiracy and one count of trafficking stolen identities.
The judge in the case said that one of the individuals can possibly serve a life sentence in prison. Capitalism is rigged against workers in favor of corporations, with the government serving as an arm to solely protect the elite class, while corporations extract wealth from workers without any recourse.
So maybe Wesley Snipes had a point in not paying his taxes? Corrupt local politicians and on the national scale an illegal war in Iran.
Enjoy this weird Youtube edit of a fight scene from Murder at 1600.