by Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
Welcome back, fellow time travelers, to another edition of 20th Century Flicks! This month, in a continued effort to check classic cinema off of my list of shame, I’m diving back to the year 1991 to watch Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break. As I carry on with my journey to cover some of Hollywood’s greatest directors, I figured my quest would not be complete without a look-in on Bigelow, who has made her mark as one of the greatest action directors working today. Additionally, with temperatures rising and my first year of vet school nearly in the rearview mirror, I wanted to find a film to get me in the summer mood, and I figured this surfing action flick was a great place to start.
Set in sunny Los Angeles, Point Break follows Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), a former college football star and a new recruit to the FBI. Utah and his partner Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey) are tasked with tracking down the “ex-presidents,” a group of highly skilled bank robbers who commit their crimes in rubber president masks. Thinking that the ex-presidents may be surfers, Utah goes undercover on the beach, developing a romantic relationship with one surfer named Tyler (Lori Petty) and befriending another named Bodhi (Patrick Swayze). Eventually, it becomes clear that Bodhi and his friends are the ex-presidents, and a game of cat-and-mouse ensues, with Utah having trouble balancing his burgeoning career in law enforcement and his newfound friendship with Bodhi and respect for the surfing culture.
I hate to say it, but Reeves’s performance alone drops this film down a rating or two for me. The man isn’t exactly known for his range as an actor, but he’s especially wooden here, infusing no life or emotion into what should be an exciting action hero. I don’t buy Johnny Utah as a talented up-and-coming FBI agent, I don’t buy his exploration of surfing culture, and I don’t buy his romantic pairing with Tyler. The one part of Utah’s character that I do enjoy is his friendship with Bodhi and the scenes that Reeves shares with Swayze. Far and away the heart and soul of the film, Swayze is giving a great performance, highlighting Bodhi’s free spirit and great chemistry with anyone he shares the screen with. When it comes to supporting performances, the big standout is John C. McGinley as Utah’s demanding boss at the FBI, giving shades of what would become McGinley’s career-defining performance as Dr. Cox 10 years later on Scrubs.
Where Point Break really excels is in its action sequences and direction. This is still early in her career, but you can absolutely see aspects of Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker (despite some pretty stark differences of tone) in Bigelow’s filmmaking. The surfing scenes are fun and dynamic, allowing the viewer to really feel some of the exhilaration of being out one the waves, and there are some great skydiving scenes towards the end of the film that really ramp up the tension. There’s also a great chase scene between Utah and Bodhi in the middle of the film, beginning with a high-speed car chase and ending on foot, as they weave through the streets and neighborhoods of Los Angeles. The film may be a little cheesy at points, but I was always having fun, and the action is engaging and exciting throughout.
Where I really struggle with Point Break is trying to get a firm grasp on its philosophy. Now, I’m not saying that an action movie needs to have some underlying philosophy or greater point to make to be worth watching, as many are great without that, but Point Break constantly feels like it’s trying to say something. Bodhi’s character, with his “moral” bank robbing and impassioned speeches on surfing and thrill seeking, feels like he should be more profound than he really is, and Utah’s waffling on whether or not he should arrest or hang out with his new buddy only muddies the water further. I guess you could say there are some explorations of masculinity and violence here, but everything is so half-baked and as empty as Keanu’s performance.
Point Break has the plot and leading performance of a campy B movie that would have been forgotten within the few years, but on the shoulders of Bigelow and Swayze, it is able to elevate its subpar material and become a cult classic that has survived the test of time. There’s a lot of fun to be had in this movie, and it’s an easy watch with exciting heists and surfing thrills, making it something I’m sure I’ll turn to again when I want to get into a warm, summery mood, or for those moments where I just want to fire my gun up in the air and go “ahhhh”.
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