ARE YOU READY FOR THE RUSH ? "POINT BREAK"

I’m pretty sure I made my opinion concerning Kathryn Bigelow pretty clear earlier in this blog. Like a lot of women who are also cinephiles, I too did a little jig of victory when finally a woman walked off with the Oscar® for Best Director. I was a little disappointed with The Hurt Locker though. Not a bad film in my opinion but still, it could have been something else. My course demands (or demanded at some point) that I educate myself a bit more on Ms. Bigelow. This is how I have ended up sharing my impressions with you today. I have incredibly mixed feelings about Ms. Bigelow. This usually disqualifies whoever it is from actually making it to the blog. But in this case I’ve made an exception, not least because the good bits – the bits I liked – were actually very good. I mean credit where it’s due sort of thing. I mean I wish I could gush about it, I really do. But the best I can manage under the circs is “meh, well…”
Point Break is basically a cop drama. It has the large benefits of being able to keep the adrenaline pumping from beginning to end, and the looks of Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze (who, let’s face it ladies, was quite something back in the day). Keanu Reeves plays 25 year old brand-spanking-new FBI agent Johnny Utah. On his first day on the job he is paired up with veteran cop Angelo Pappas who is eccentric – to put it mildly. The division is bank robbery and Pappas can actually use all the help he can get because a gang calling themselves the “Ex-presidents” has robbed around 30 banks in three years without getting caught. Pappas has a hunch. He is pretty sure these men are surfers. Johnny, eager to earn his stripes on his first day, goes undercover in to the surfing community to try and see if he can root out who is behind these robberies. One of the people he meets undercover is Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) adrenaline junkie and surfer extraordinaire. Bodhi’s charisma, coupled with the charms of Tyler, Bodhi’s sexy ex-girlfriend with whom Johnny begins to grow quite close, after a while surfing becomes more than just an undercover mission for Johnny. On the other hand, the operation seems to be closing in on the gang… Will Johnny be able to choose the right side when the time comes?
Now let me tell you what this film is really about. It’s about the choice between a 9 to 5 job and a conventional life or doing something different. It’s all about that moment, about a month or so after you start your first job when you look back on your day - usually on a particularly bad day – and ask yourself with sincerity and openness whether or not you have made a terrible mistake. Now this may or may not be the case depending on your personal talents and abilities. Your vocation may actually be as a musician or a fire-eater and you may never know it. Alternatively, you may just be having a bad day, nothing a drink with mates after work can’t solve. Now, as I said this is very obviously what the film is really about; but I do wish Ms. Bigelow had made the choice a little more ambiguous. I get what she means by the surfer lifestyle - and Bodhi / Patrick Swayze puts the case very eloquently and with a lot of charisma but at the end of the day, there is no choice to be made, not really. There are some interesting plot-twists and some very solid, innovative camera-work. The story never loses momentum for a minute, if that is, you are willing to push the fact that it is chock-full of every single Hollywood cliché you can think of to the back of your mind. I won’t say it’s predictable from beginning to end, but it comes pretty damn close. I mean, I like this theme, it’s deep, and in the context of policing and crime something “heavier” could have been done with it – and it has been done too as a matter of fact – I honestly feel that this film was a missed opportunity… Enjoyable yes, but cannot go beyond the banale…