What’s a “good-bad” movie? It’s the kind of flick that might have you cackling, hollering or groaning, one that is not necessarily great cinema but is great fun. It’s highly watchable even though — or maybe because — it’s memorably ridiculous. And it always has at least one element that pushes it into absurd territory.
When I started this series one year ago, I was sweating through a serious Patrick Swayze dilemma: Is “Road House” or “Point Break” the pinnacle of a thoroughly over-the-top, delightfully nonsensical, infinitely rewatchable movie classic? In the end, “Road House” reigned. But there’s no better way to mark this anniversary than to revisit Kathryn Bigelow’s high-octane SoCal surfer-dude crime thriller.
Nearly 20 years before winning two Oscars for “The Hurt Locker,” Bigelow accomplished in “Point Break” what she’d become famous for: energetic, hyperkinetic sequences complete with hand-held cameras and P.O.V. angles, and subverting expectations around masculinity, especially in action films.
In “Point Break,” Keanu Reeves stars as Johnny Utah, a by-the-book former college quarterback turned rookie F.B.I. agent who goes undercover to bust a ring of surfers who’ve been robbing banks while cosplaying as U.S. presidents.
But this square is quickly seduced by the waves and the king of said waves: Bodhi (Swayze), the charismatic, thrill-seeking leader of this band of surfer-criminals who is somehow also a local guru with an anticapitalist bent (“the system that kills the human spirit,” as he puts it).
Together, Swayze and Reeves make this movie unforgettable, despite a plot as watertight as a sieve.
What Makes It Good?
Chemistry You Could Cut With a Knife
“I wanted to play it like a love story between two men,” Swayze once said of “Point Break.” And that love, though star-crossed, is exceedingly palpable throughout the film. It’s a testament to defying the pervasive machismo of action movies to focus on vulnerability, intimacy, fascination and admiration between men — even amid bodacious waves and mid-skydive (yes, Swayze and Reeves did that aerial stunt in real life).
Not even the edgy, ultracool surfer babe Tyler (played by 1990s punk-rock It-girl Lori Petty), Johnny’s love interest who teaches him the ropes, can distract from the spark between the two leads.
In turn, the movie’s perceived homoerotic overtones have also long been a point of discussion. The men are often shown shirtless, tanned and beautiful, abs glistening. Lines like, “I know you want me so bad, it’s like acid in your mouth,” which Bodhi says to Johnny, only fuel that speculation. Either way, without that synergy between Swayze and Reeves, “Point Break” would have lost its luster long ago.
What Makes It Bad?
A Criminally Convoluted Plot
No matter how you slice it, the narrative logic here is simply not logic-ing.
Does F.B.I. training consist of shooting moving cutouts in the rain and searching for bricks at the bottom of an indoor pool while blindfolded? Unlikely.
What’s up with the quasi-Eastern-religion thing Bodhi and his gnarly band of criminals have going? How do they reconcile that philosophical stance with the fact that they fund their freewheeling, bohemian lifestyle through armed robbery?
And perhaps most egregious: Is Johnny Utah the worst undercover cop ever represented in film? He uses his real name; sleeps with Tyler, the primary witness; and in the end, in a final act of respect, decides to let the prime suspect, Bodhi, escape into a deadly wave.
What Makes It Good-Bad?
A Strand of Hair, an Infamous Tan Line and Wildly Quotable Dialogue
Really driving home the film’s absurdity are the two deeply silly smoking guns on which the F.B.I.’s whole case hinges: a sandy, salty, waxy strand of hair that prompts Johnny and his partner, Agent Angelo Pappas (played to gruff perfection by Gary Busey), to wander the beach with scissors, snipping locks from unsuspecting brahs; and a video of a man’s bare butt, which lingers onscreen long enough for us to examine it with the same rigor as the detectives.
Compounding that madness are the endlessly odd and quotable gems from the script that have become canonical among fans: “Utah! Get me two!” which Pappas hollers out a car window while they’re doing surveillance (he’s referring, of course, to meatball subs); “Back off, Warchild, seriously” (Bodhi to a surfer who’s roughing up Johnny); “He’s a modern savage” (Tyler casually describing Bodhi to Johnny); and many more R-rated zingers that are best left off this page.
W. Peter Iliff wrote the screenplay, though James Cameron, who was married to Bigelow at the time, still feels he deserves credit, saying last year that he had a big hand in penning the script. “I wrote ‘Point Break,’” Cameron said. “I flat out got stiffed by the Writers Guild on that.”
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