Film Review | Point Break Misses the Point – It’s Actually Serious
The plot, again, sees Johnny Utah infiltrate Bodhi’s gang to foil a series of heists. Swayze’s original Bodhi was a likeable, goofy surfer with a permanent grin. Edgar Ramirez’s idea for the character is to suck all joy from him, turning him into a dour eco terrorist spouting lines like ‘If a tree falls in the woods and no one puts it on youtube did it ever really happen?‘ with a straight face. It’s not just that the sense of glee has been sidelined. The action scenes fail to set out the stakes beforehand. Utah joins the gang as they set out to complete the ‘Ozaki eight’; a series of extreme sports feats. Before each stunt we have no idea what they are about to undertake. Imagine a heist move where the characters were just running into buildings and we had no idea what they were doing. It’s rare to say that a Hollywood movie needs more exposition but there’s a reason that each set piece in say, Mission Impossible is preceded by someone explaining the plan. Here it’s just a smush of often identically dressed characters climbing, biking and parachuting to ‘Gold on the Ceiling‘.
