Review of Point Break (1991) by Zaw M — 29 Jun 2015
Take a pinch of cop movie cliches, add 3 grams of caricatures, crack 2 skydiving scenes, whip 'em all up in a bowl of big waves, and you've got Point Break. We can worry about plot, tension and whether the audience will give a shit about the characters afterwards.
Kathryn Bigelow's cult cop flick is an odd one. Too dumb to thrill and too sincere to amuse, it's one of few films of its genre that'll leave you wondering "Hey, wait... Is this funny is this for real?" throughout its entire runtime.
The film is 80% surf scenes and Keanu Reeves has the charisma of a board. Reeves' special agent Johnny Utah is the sort of vacant undercover copper to be endlessly mimicked in the future by the likes of Paul Walker, and Patrick Swayze's about as suited to a surf dude role as Michael J. Fox would be to playing The Terminator. The film's only real redeeming feature lies in laughing at the fact that Utah's girlfriend and surf crew believe his boneheaded backstory. Then laughing again when it turns out most of it was actually all true. Those lines... I've seen better delivery at Yodel. All surf, no turf.
This review of Point Break (1991) was written by Zaw M on 29 June 2015.
Point Break has generally received positive reviews.
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