Review of Point Break (2015) by James S — 05 Nov 2009

By rights Point Break ought to be the most awesome movie of all time. It has surfing, skydiving, bank robbing, plenty of punch ups, a psychotic tattooed naked lady and script crammed with the most quotable one liners this side of Top Gun.

Unfortunately it also has Keanu Reeves who carries about as much charisma as the surf board he tries to learn upon so his FBI agent, the brilliantly named Johnny Utah, can infiltrate zen master Patrick Swayze's surfing tribe who may or may not be robbing banks to fund their jet setting, surf lifestyle.

Kathryn Bigelow has pulled off a cracking action movie that delivers plenty of drama and the sky diving and surfing scenes are absolutely spectacular. Swayze is at his career best here too. The real sticking point is Keanu Reeves. He brings down almost every scene he is involved in with his monotonous delivery and his relationship with Lori Petty feels forced and is the worst thing in the movie. He does manage some chemistry with Patrick but this is more thanks to Swayze than Reeves himself.

It's a real shame as with a slightly more accomplished actor, Point Break could have been an all out classic. Perhaps in a lesser sophisticated action movie, Reeves wooden persona would have done just fine, but there is some depth here thanks to the scripts relationship between the two leads and Bigelows wham bam but artful direction which calls for someone with a little more acting chops.

Point Break is great fun but there's just this niggling feeling that you're watching something that could have been amazing being destroyed.