POINT BREAK
Director : Ericson Core
Cast : Édgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer, Delroy Lindo
Genre : Action/Thriller
Run Time : 114 mins
Opens : 3 December 2015
Rating : NC-16 (Sexual Scene and Some Violence)
Strap in, buckle up, insert alternate ways of securing
oneself here – because things are about to get XTREME! *Guitar riff*. Johnny
Utah (Bracey) is an FBI agent-in-training and a former motocross rider who left
the sport after a tragic accident in his youth. When a team of elite
thrill-seekers pulls off multiple heists around the world, targeting wealthy
corporations, Utah proposes to his FBI instructor (Lindo) that he be allowed to
investigate. Utah goes undercover, infiltrating the team and befriending its
leader Bodhi (Ramírez), who explains that the daredevil exploits are actually
about honouring nature. Utah falls in love with one of the team’s members,
Samsara (Palmer), and British agent Angelo Pappas (Winstone) begins to doubt
where Utah’s loyalties lie. As Bodhi’s gang pursues the ultimate rush, Utah is
seduced back into the extreme sports world, but must put a stop to Bodhi’s
criminal activities before he reaches the point of no return.
Point Break is a remake of the 1991 film
of the same name, which some would go so far as to call a classic. The original
Point Break is by no means flawless
and certainly has its goofy moments, but its iconic status is well-deserved and
the characters of Johnny Utah and Bodhi, as portrayed by Keanu Reeves and
Patrick Swayze respectively, are certainly memorable. There’s no use beating
around the bush: a Point Break remake
is unnecessary, and doubly so because we already have The Fast and the Furious, which swapped out surfing for underground
street racing. It is a touch ironic that Ericson Core, the cinematographer of
the first Fast and Furious movie, is
the director and cinematographer of the Point
Break remake. It can be argued that if the characters had different names
and this movie were called something other than Point Break, there would actually be less furore at it being a rip-off
than there is now, given its “official” status.
The
original film revolved around surf culture and the remake ups the ante by
throwing everything and the kitchen sink into it, showcasing feats of big-wave
surfing, wingsuit flying, free rock climbing, dirt road motorcycling and sheer
face snowboarding. The film has roped in top real-life extreme sports athletes
to perform the stunts and granted, they do look impressive, but there is
something very dated about this approach. It makes the film feel like a relic
of the late 90s, when things like the X Games were taking off and everything
felt like a Mountain Dew commercial. The daredevil stunts are strung together
with a plot device in which Bodhi is looking to complete the “Okami 8”, a
series of extreme sports trials. The film has a larger scope than the original,
with filming taking place in Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Mexico,
Venezuela, French Polynesia and India, but there are times when it feels more
like a ginned up Amazing Race than
anything else.
It is
interesting that audiences feel so protective over the characters of Johnny
Utah and Bodhi given that they’ve only been in one film, but it seems like it’s
sacrilege for any actors other than Reeves and Swayze to take on those roles. Gerard
Butler was originally cast as Bodhi but was replaced by Ramírez. While Ramírez
brings some mystique to the role and tries his best to pull off the
philosopher-warrior attitude embodied by Swayze, his interpretation of the
character is far from sufficiently magnetic. Reeves isn’t exactly an
untouchable paradigm of acting talent and from some angles, Bracey does sort of
resemble Reeves. He does bring a heaping helping of whininess to the part.
Similarly, Palmer is considerably more boring than Lori Petty was in the
original. Gary Busey brought his trademark unhinged unpredictability to Pappas,
while Winstone is the usual gruff English street tough he always is. Lindo is
the stock authority figure, also doing very little. As a side note, the film
features some of the least convincing tattoos we’ve ever seen in a movie. Guess
the stunt budget left the makeup department high and dry.
It’s
pretty obvious that the plot exists to string the stunts together, and it all
comes across as very perfunctory and half-hearted. This is a movie that should
naturally be flowing with adrenaline, but it often feels like it’s just being
shoved along. A Point Break remake
was a terrible idea to begin with, and even with all the extreme sports bells
and whistles in the world, there’s no way this was going to be anything but a
let-down. In the hands of screenwriter Kurt Wimmer, it’s even more laughable
than in the original film when Bodhi waxes faux-philosophical. Sure, the
original Point Break was cheesy, but
that was part of its charm. In place of that, we get a whole lot of going
through the motions, the end result mediocre rather than radical.
Summary: This
remake boasts superbly executed stunts but is fully incapable of justifying its
existence and, for a movie about extreme sports, is sorely lacking in energy. It’s
pretty blah, brah.
RATING:
2
out of 5 Stars
Jedd Jong
