The original Point Break is a movie that holds a special place in the hearts of many — Utah, get me two! — but that doesn’t discount the fact it was a film that held such a baffling assortment of terrible ingredients that it somehow amounted to an accidental, re-watchable masterpiece. Accidental is the crucial word there.
It’s the kind of movie that, no matter what scene you happen to catch it on, you stick with it. Sadly, right here is where the fun ends and the mockery begins.
Behold, a 15-minute, condescending evisceration of every single thing wrong with Point Break.
Below are a few of my favorite takeaways:
“Well maybe I can do better than some over-the-hill burnout.”
Keanu Reeves actually delivering this line after cementing his special range as a burnout with bangs in the 1989 thriller, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, is why this movie is the gift that keeps on giving.
“Man, L.A. sure has changed a lot during that time. The air got dirty and the sex got clean.”
This line by Gary Busey was a telltale sign that he wasn’t even acting at all. He was just being Gary Busey. Which is basically a form of acting. A special kind of acting. And that’s mostly why this movie will stand the test of time in a very strange, nostalgic way, despite featuring a highbrow surfer brawl involving the lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Also, did you know Kristen Stewart’s character from Panic Room somehow made a cameo in Point Break 11 years before Panic Room was even released? Did you also know that very same actor played the young, jaded son in Parenthood? Neither did I. What a mind-fuck. I was either too busy watching Point Break for the fifth time or attempting to google Johnny Utah’s stats from the Rose Bowl.
“That’s a surfboard all right.”
This, in a nutshell, is Point Break. Bodhi was a man who thrived at two things, and two things only: Robbing banks and making the simplest things in life sound deeply complex. Masterful shit.
Ah yes, the famous discovery that Johnny Utah was, in fact, Johnny Utah of Ohio State lore… even though he was deeply undercover? Genius. But as always, game recognize game, even though surfers in Cali didn’t pay attention to Big Ten football. Especially in 1991.
Well, now that it’s glaringly apparent that this entire movie was a pile of cliches stacked on an even bigger pile of cliches, let’s try and close this thing out in the positive manner in which we began.
An Oscar-worthy hand gesture, no question.