Point Break
The more time goes by, the more the films of the 90’s take on a golden, nostalgic appeal. Hard to believe that decade started thirty-four years ago, and to kick it off in 1991, a highly kinetic action film broke onto the scene that still holds up well today.
The set up is preposterous but simple enough; young, hot FBI
agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is assigned to the bank robbery division of
the Los Angeles office of the bureau. Under the care of his senior agent Pappas
(Gary Busey) he’s given the task of bringing down a so-far uncatchable team of
bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents. Why? Because they rob banks
with masks donning the faces of famous ex-presidents, which looks like a joke,
but they mean business. They’re in and out of a bank in 90 seconds flat, and
have been getting away clean for three years. Pappas has a theory as to their
identity; they are surfers, so Utah hits the beach to go deep undercover and
try to find the culprits paddling on the waves.
Ten years after Point Break, another story of an undercover
cop infiltrating a scene in Los Angeles to bring down a team of armed robbers
came along, and gave birth to a franchise that is at ten movies strong and
counting. Swapping surf boards for cars, it was “The Fast and the Furious”. But
Point Break did it first, and better in my opinion. It also contains no CGI,
pushing for real surfing and real skydiving. On closer inspection you can spot
the body doubles for Reeves and Patrick Swayze on the waves and falling from
the sky, but you can look past that because the film is just do damn
entertaining.
I just rewatched it recently for the first time in over ten
years, and it still has an impact. You don’t need to think, as the film flies
along at a swift pace, and although the plot is completely ridiculous, it’s a
smarter movie than you might think. Reeves and the late, great Swayze have good
chemistry together, as two men both seeking an adrenaline rush; one just surfs
and robs banks, while the other wants to chase bad guys and slap the cuffs on
them. And even as Utah suspects the robbers he’s after are the four surfer
dudes he’s befriended; he feels a kinship for them. After all, they taught him
how to surf, showed him how to have fun, and that life is all about chasing the
ultimate rush.
The last forty-five minutes of the film are a knockout. With
a real free-fall skydive scene that was expertly filmed, leading to a
high-stakes bank robbery that puts you right in the thick of the action, a
shootout. then another skydive, the action never lets up. I won’t lie, it makes
me want to skydive again, and give surfing a go.
No comments:
Post a Comment