Point Break

Year of release : 1991

Run time : 2h2m

Genre : Action / Thriller / Heist

Cast : Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, John C. McGinley

Johnny Utah is an FBI agent fresh out of the academy. His partner, senior agent, Angelo Pappas, is not impressed, at first, that a former Ohio state quarterback is now an FBI agent that he has to work with, but gets over it fast.

The two are investigating a series of bank robberies by men dressed as, and wearing former presidents masks. They never rob the vault, just the money the bank tellers have , and are gone in 90 seconds. They robbed 27 banks in 3 years!

Pappas’ colleagues are laughing at him, as his theory is the bank robbers are surfers. At first he doesn’t want to tell his theory to Johnny, but because he keeps on asking him about it, he does. And Johnny believes him.

The bank robbers only rob the banks from June to October, and they found traces of s3x wax, that surfers use on their boards for traction, travelling around the world with the money, looking for the waves.

They decide Johnny should go undercover, thing Johnny doesn’t quite want to do, as he doesn’t want to learn how to surf. The first time he surfs he almost drowns, and is rescued by a woman.

He asks the FBI about her record, and based on her history, he goes to her job, and pretends he wants to learn how to surf, to do something for himself, as his whole life he did things for his parents who died in a car crash (as hers died in a plane crash ), in order to get close to her. The woman is convinced, and she teaches him how to surf.

On one of these times, when she teaches him to surf, he meets Bodhi, who used to be her boyfriend.

They end up playing football on the beach one night, and Bodhi recognizes Johnny as the former Ohio state quarterback who broke his knee, and can’t play football anymore.

On one of the robberies, someone pulled one of the robbers’ hair, so Johnny and Pappas start pulling people’s hair on the beach, to find out where could the robbers spend their time.

Johnny gets in trouble when he surfs too close to some guy, who finds him later with his friends, and beat him up. Bodhi comes just in time, and tells the gang to back off, as he’s his friend.

Johnny looks into the gang who beat him up, thinking it’s them, and plans to raid their place. Their raid messes up the mission of an undercover DEA agent.

One day, when Bodhi comes to his place unexpectedly, as he always does, to take him and his girlfriend surfing, he sees one of his friends pull his pants down while surfing, the way one of the robbers do on one of the tapes, and he realizes it’s them.

I personally enjoyed the movie. It has beautiful landscapes, beach and sun, and a pretty good, unique, story. Johnny Utah becomes friends with these people, mostly with Bodhi, and although he’s trying to do his job, it does look like he really cares for what happens to him. The same can be said for Bodhi, as he doesn’t let the others hurt him, although SPOILER they do kidnap his ex girlfriend, now Johnny’s girlfriend.

The title of the movie refers to a surfing term. Ironically, when Keanu Reeves was attached to the project, the movie was called Johnny Utah, then “Riders on the storm” a line from the famous The Doors song. It was named Point Break halfway through filming.

The acting was good.

Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers has a small role in the movie.

The soundtrack was so and so, as sometimes I liked it, others I didn’t. I definitely didn’t like the songs chosen for the movie.

The visual effects were good.

The movie received positive reviews, with a 69% critics approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a score of 60 on Metacritic. Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B+.

The movie grossed 83.5 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 24 million dollars.

The movie was in the making since 1986, when director Kathryn Bigelow started working on the project with her husband at the time ,James Cameron, adding scenes to the script as an executive producer.

In 1986, when Ridley Scott was attached as a director, Johnny Depp, Matthew Broderick, Val Kilmer and even Charlie Sheen were considered to play Johnny Utah.

Patrick Swayze did most of his stuns himself, including the sky diving scenes!!

The movie has a 2015 remake.

If you are interested in watching the movie, you can watch it for free, on Dailymotion.

Rating : Worth a watch !