Point Break Information

Point Break is a 1991 action film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves, Lori Petty and Gary Busey. The title refers to the surfing term point break, where a wave breaks as it hits a point of land jutting out from the coastline.

The film was a box office success upon its release and it has since gathered a worldwide cult following in VHS and later DVD and Blu-ray releases.

Plot summary

Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is a rookie FBI Agent. He and his veteran partner, Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey), are investigating a string of bank robberies by a gang known as the Ex-Presidents (during their robberies they use masks of former Presidents Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Jimmy Carter to disguise their true identities). They only raid the cash drawers in the banks they rob--never going for the vault--and are out in 90 seconds.

Pursuing Pappas' theory that the criminals are surfers, Johnny goes undercover to infiltrate the surfing community. Knowing nothing of the sport/lifestyle, he persuades orphan surfer girl Tyler Endicott (Lori Petty) to teach him to surf. In the process, Johnny develops a complex friendship with Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), the charismatic leader of a gang of surfers, Roach (James LeGros), Grommet (Bojesse Christopher) and Nathaniel (John Philbin), who accept Johnny when they realize he is a former college football star. As he masters the art of surfing, Johnny finds himself increasingly drawn to the surfers' adrenaline-charged lifestyle, Bodhi's philosophies, and Tyler.

Following a clue retrieved by analyzing toxins found in the hair of one of the bank robbers, Johnny and Pappas lead an FBI raid on another gang of surfers. While criminals, this group are not the Ex-Presidents and the raid inadvertently ruins a DEA undercover operation.

Watching Bodhi's group surfing, Johnny suspects they are the "Ex-Presidents," noting how close a group they are and the way one of them moons everyone in the same manner one of the robbers does when leaving a bank. He tails Bodhi and his suspicions are confirmed when he sees Bodhi and Roach casing a bank. Johnny and Pappas stake out the bank and the Ex-Presidents appear. The one in the Reagan mask leads Johnny in a furious foot chase through the neighborhood, culminating in Johnny jumping into an aqueduct and causing an old football injury in his knee to flare up again. Despite having a clear shot at Reagan (locking eyes with him), Johnny cannot bring himself to shoot and he escapes.

At a campfire that night, it is revealed that Bodhi and his gang are the Ex-Presidents. Their motivation was not profit, but rebelling against the system. Knowing Johnny's true identity, most of the guys want out but Bodhi refuses to fold. The next morning, Bodhi aggressively recruits Johnny into going skydiving with him and his friends. Johnny, still without proof of Bodhi's bank robbing, goes along. After the jump, Bodhi reveals that he knows Johnny is FBI and has arranged for his friend Rosie (Lee Tergesen), a non-surfing thug, to hold Tyler hostage. Johnny is forced to go with the Ex-Presidents in their last bank robbery of the summer. But Bodhi breaks his own rule by going for the vault, pulling too much time. Then Grommet, along with an off-duty police officer and a security guard who try to stop the robbery, are killed. Angered by Grommet's death and by having to kill the cop, Bodhi knocks Johnny out and leaves him at the scene.

Defying their boss, Pappas and Johnny go to the airport where Bodhi, Roach, and Nathaniel are about to leave for Mexico (where Rosie awaits them with Tyler). In a shootout, Pappas and Nathaniel are killed, while Roach is seriously wounded. The pilot reveals their destination within Johnny's earshot, jeopardizing their escape plans. With Roach aboard, Bodhi forces Johnny onto the plane at gunpoint. Once airborne and over their intended jump point, Bodhi and Roach put on parachutes and jump from the plane, leaving Johnny to take the blame again. With no other parachutes available, Johnny jumps from the plane with Bodhi's gun, managing to intercept him before he lands, but Bodhi forces him to drop the gun so he can open their parachute and land safely. Upon impact, Johnny's knee gives out again, allowing Bodhi to escape Johnny's grasp. Bodhi meets with Rosie and releases Tyler. Roach dies of his wounds and Bodhi and Rosie leave with the money.

Nine months later, a long-haired Johnny, still surfing, tracks down Bodhi at Bells Beach in Victoria, Australia, where a record storm is producing lethal waves. This is an event Bodhi had talked about experiencing, calling it the "50 Year Storm". After a brutal fight in the surf, Johnny manages to handcuff himself and Bodhi together. Bodhi begs Johnny to release him so he can ride the once-in-a-lifetime wave. Knowing he will not come back alive, Johnny releases him, bids him farewell, and watches, with the authorities, as Bodhi goes to his death. Johnny walks away, throwing his FBI badge into the ocean.

Cast

• Patrick Swayze as Bodhi
• Keanu Reeves as FBI Agent Johnny Utah
• Gary Busey as FBI Agent Angelo Pappas
• Lori Petty as Tyler Endicott
• John C. McGinley as FBI Director Ben Harp
• James LeGros as Roach
• John Philbin as Nathanial
• Bojesse Christopher as Grommet
• Lee Tergesen as Rosie
• Julian Reyes as FBI Agent Alvarez
• Daniel Beer as FBI Agent Babbit
• Vincent Klyn as Lupton "Warchild" Pittman
• Chris Pedersen as Bunker Weiss
• Dave Olson as Archbold
• Anthony Kiedis as Tone
• Christopher Pettiet as 15
• Sydney Walsh as Miss Deer
• Peter Phelps as Australian surfer
• Tom Sizemore as DEA Agent Dietz (uncredited)
• Bill Yiannakou as rad surfer man

Production

Originally, Matthew Broderick, Johnny Depp, Val Kilmer and Charlie Sheen were all considered to star in Point Break as Johnny Utah with Ridley Scott directing. After acquiring the screenplay, the producers of Point Break began looking for a director. At the time, executive producer James Cameron was married to director Kathryn Bigelow, who had just completed Blue Steel and was looking for her next project.

Point Break was originally called Johnny Utah when Keanu Reeves was cast in the title role. The studio felt that this title said very little about surfing and by the time Patrick Swayze was cast, the film had been renamed Riders on the Storm after the famous rock song by The Doors. However, Jim Morrison's lyrics had nothing to do with the film and so that title was also rejected. It was not until halfway through filming that Point Break became the film's title because of its relevance to surfing.

Reeves liked the name of his character as it reminded him of star athletes like Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana. He described his character as a "total control freak and the ocean beats him up and challenges him. After a while everything becomes a game...He becomes as amoral as any criminal. He loses the difference between right and wrong." Swayze felt that Bodhi was a lot like him and that they both shared "that wild-man edge."

Two months before filming, Lori Petty, Reeves, and Swayze trained with former world class professional surfer Dennis Jarvis on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Jarvis remembers, "Patrick said he'd been on a board a couple of times, Keanu definitely hadn't surfed before, and Lori had never been in the ocean in her life." Shooting the surfing sequences proved to be challenging for both actors with Swayze cracking four of his ribs. For many of the surfing scenes he refused to use a stunt double as he never had one for fight scenes or car chases. He also did the skydiving scenes himself and the film's aerial jump instructor Jim Wallace found that the actor was a natural and took to it right away. The actor ended up making 55 jumps for the film. Swayze actually based aspects of his character after one of his stunt doubles, Darrick Doerner, a top big wave surfer. After learning to surf for the film, Reeves took a liking to it and took it up as a hobby.

Reception

Box office

Point Break was released on July 12, 1991 in 1,615 theaters, grossing $8.5 million on its opening weekend, behind Terminator 2: Judgment Days (directed by Bigelow's then husband, James Cameron) second weekend and the openings of the re-issue of 101 Dalmatians and Boyz n the Hood. With a budget of $24 million, the film went on to make $43.2 million in North America and $40.3 million internationally for a worldwide total of $83.5 million.

Critical response

The film received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Roger Ebert gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote "Bigelow is an interesting director for this material. She is interested in the ways her characters live dangerously for philosophical reasons. They aren't men of action, but men of thought who choose action as a way of expressing their beliefs." In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised Reeves' performance: "A lot of the snap comes, surprisingly, from Mr. Reeves, who displays considerable discipline and range. He moves easily between the buttoned-down demeanor that suits a police procedural story and the loose-jointed manner of his comic roles." Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C+" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote "Point Break makes those of us who don't spend our lives searching for the ultimate physical rush feel like second-class citizens. The film turns reckless athletic valor into a new form of aristocracy." In his review for The Washington Post, Hal Hinson wrote "A lot of what Bigelow puts up on the screen bypasses the brain altogether, plugging directly into our viscera, our gut. The surfing scenes in particular are majestically powerful, even awe-inspiring. Bigelow's picture is a feast for the eyes, but we watch movies with more than our eyes. She seduces us, then asks us to be bimbos." Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers wrote, "Bigelow can't keep the film from drowning in a sea of surf-speak. But without her, Point Break would be no more than an excuse to ogle pretty boys in wet suits." USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and Mike Clark wrote "Its purely visceral material (surf sounds, skydiving stunt work, a tough indoor shootout midway through) are first-rate. As for the tangibles that matter even more (script, acting, directorial control, credible relationships between characters), Break defies belief. Dramatically, it rivals the lowest surf yet this year." Time magazine's Richard Corliss wrote, "So how do you rate a stunningly made film whose plot buys so blithely into macho mysticism that it threatens to turn into an endless bummer? Looks 10, Brains 3."

Some critics argue that the 2001 film The Fast and the Furious is a copy of Point Break, swapping surfing for illegal street car racing.

In 2006, a special edition was released on DVD. Entertainment Weekly gave it a "B" rating and wrote, "The making-of docs (at their best discussing Swayze's extracurricular skydiving"?that really is him doing the Adios, amigo fall) will leave you hanging." It was first released on Blu-ray as a special "Pure Adrenaline Edition" on July 1, 2008, but that was later discontinued. Point Break was re-released on Blu-ray by Warner Home Video on June 14, 2011.

Accolades

At the 1992 MTV Movie Awards, Point Break was nominated for three awards including "Most Desirable Male" (Keanu Reeves), "Most Desirable Male" (Patrick Swayze), and "Best Action Sequence" for the second jump from the plane. In it, Agent Utah jumps out of a plane without a parachute to catch Bodhi and rescue Tyler. Utah catches up with Bodhi and holds a gun to his head. However, Bodhi refuses to pull the rip cord and Utah must decide between dropping his gun (so he can hold on and pull the rip cord) or letting the two fall to the ground. The film ultimately won "Most Desirable Male" for Keanu Reeves.

Legacy

Point Break was listed in the VH1 series I Love the 90s on the episode "1991". Many celebrities, including Dominic Monaghan, Maroon 5, Mo Rocca, Michael Ian Black, Hal Sparks, and Chris Pontius commented about the movie and why it deserved to be included in the episode. Entertainment Weekly ranked Point Break as having one of the "10 Best Surfing Scenes" in cinema.

The film inspired a piece of cult theater, Point Break Live!, in which the role of Johnny Utah is played by an audience member chosen by popular acclamation after a brief audition. The new "Keanu" reads all of his (or her) lines from cue-cards for the duration of the show, "to capture the rawness of a Keanu Reeves performance even from those who generally think themselves incapable of acting."

Point Break was parodied and paid tribute to in Hot Fuzz, where it served as the basis for numerous comedic scenes and inspiration for the two lead characters (a pair of cops).

The scene in which Utah jumps after Bodhi without a parachute was ranked seventh in Empire magazine's Top 10 Crazy Action Sequences. The scene was also tested by the Discovery Channel series MythBusters. It was determined that Utah and Bodhi would not have been able to free-fall for 90 seconds (as in the film), nor would they have been able to hold a conversation in mid-air. However, it was determined that, by streamlining his body, Utah could have conceivably caught up with Bodhi after jumping from the plane.

Trivia

This is Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's second movie together. They were in Youngblood in 1986. Patrick Swayze actually skydived making this film. He and Don Swayze, his brother, were avid sky divers.

Remake

A remake of Point Break is being developed at Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. Kurt Wimmer will write the screenplay and will coproduce with Broderick Johnson, Andrew Kosove, Michael DeLuca, John Baldecchi, and Chris Taylor.

Soundtrack

• Ratt " "Nobody Rides For Free"
• Concrete Blonde " "I Want You"
• The Jimi Hendrix Experience " "If 6 Was 9"
• School of Fish " "Rose Colored Glasses"
• Public Image Ltd. " "Criminal"
• Shark Island " "My City"
• Love " "7 and 7 Is"
• Loudhouse " "Smoke on the Water"
• Westworld " "So Long Cowboy"
• Little Caesar " "Down to the Wire"
• L.A. Guns " "Over the Edge"
• Liquid Jesus " "7 and 7 Is"
• Wire Train " "I Will Not Fall"
• Ice-T " "Original Gangster"
• Mark Isham " "Foot Chase"
• Sheryl Crow " "Hundreds of Tears"

Score album

On February 7, 2008, a score release for Point Break was released by La-La Land Records, featuring composer Mark Isham's score. This edition was limited to 2,000 units and features 65 minutes of score with liner notes by Dan Goldwasser that incorporate comments from both Bigelow and Isham. It is now out of print.