Guy Movies for Guys: POINT BREAK

Whatever you have to say about Keanu, you have to agree that no one pulls off the blank faced Christ figure/spiritual awakening quite like him. People generally appreciated his brown faced Siddartha in “Little Buddha” and everyone loved every Neo blathering, the ‘Whoa”’s and the “I know Kung Fu”’s as he learned how to dodge bullets and fly. But, the Keanu awakening movie that stands above even the first Matrix: motherfucking “Point Break”, mother fucker!

In the first few minutes, I was already sucked into the plot’s ludicrousness. Gary Busey explains straight faced, his theory regarding the film’s bank robbers (SPOILER WARNING): they’re surfers. From then on, the movie unabashedly throws out all sense, giving us ludicrous plot point after ludicrous plot point until you’re literally dizzy but still waiting for more. I forget where I read it, but the climax is such that it keeps on rising and rising, past the conventional climactic arc, to recreate the rush of surfing and skydiving. Literally, there’s like three climaxes in the last twenty minutes.

Kathryn Bigelow’s directorial fingerprints are all over the sucker. Her utterly long takes are evident in the first five minutes, the camera sifting through the halls of the FBI’s bank robbery department. I have to admit, I was a little taken aback seeing “Kathryn” in the opening credits (a female directed action movie?), but she fucking brings it. The first shootout scene kickstarts out of the first relaxed half hour. But, when the scene’s done, after you see Johnny Utah’s (Keanu) face two inches from a full powered lawnmower, you’re breathing fast and high five-ing whoever’s on the couch next to you.

While there’s barely a sniff of Bigelow’s feminism, there is a big dose of hilariously (un)subdued homoeroticism. I could do an essay on it so one example: the almost too close Bodhi/Utah (Swayze/Reeves) relationship tied even closer with Utah dating Bodhi’s ex, played by Lori Petty, who in turn serves as a kind of proxy where Utah has sex with Bodhi. Read that again: Keanu Reeves having sex with Patrick Swayze… awesome.

Aside from Swayze, Reeves, and Lori Petty, there’s Busey as a fiery, down on his luck vet, Tom Sizemore jogs through with a hilarious ninety second monologue (“You think I like this hair?”), Lee Tergesen (Beecher) as a homicidal maniac, and Anthony Kiedis from the Chili Peppers as a coked out surfer. As convincing as Reeves is, Swayze is the backbone to this thing. So underrated is his Bodhi, the surfer cum existential messiah. Bodhi takes it upon himself to convert Johnny Utah from ‘The Man’ to a man. Are Bodhi’s long blond locks, bonfire lit beachside sermons, and danger-filled embraces of life (Swayze does his own skydiving in the film) enough to get Reeves to dump his badge for a surfboard? Watch and find out, but that pretty, dirty dancing bastard sure converted me.