Wednesday 17 February 2016

POINT BREAK

*** THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS INCLUDING ONE THAT'S PRETTY BIG ***

Starring: Édgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone
Writer: Kurt Wimmer
Director: Ericson Core




In 1991, director Kathryn Bigelow took an unrelentingly dumb story of surfers pulling bank jobs and spun it into action thiller gold, pushing Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze's bromance to the forefront and somehow making a virtue of the laughable dialogue to create something of a minor classic. A lot of people out there remember Point Break with a great deal of fondness and now they have a new, shiny and expanded take on the original to enjoy or grumble about.

Expanded? Well, this time out, surfing is only part of the story. Yes, there's still a young FBI agent called Johnny Utah, only this time he's a tattooed ex-motocross rider (played by Bracey) who joined the Bureau after a tragic accident killed a friend and fellow rider. Yes, there's still a spiritual thrill-seeker called Bodhi (played by 
Ramírez), only this time he's chasing the ultimate rush on land and air in addition to sea. Yes, Utah still has a partner, yes he's still called Pappas only this time it's not the barely-controlled, endlessly entertaining lunacy of Gary Busey, it's the grizzled, growling Brit stylings of Ray Winstone.

In the 2016 version it's not just banks being robbed either. Aircraft and convoys travelling mountain roads are also targets, providing a ready-made excuse for skydiving sequences and car/bike/truck chases. There's so much action crammed into Point Break, how could it possibly be boring?

That's what I'm asking. How could it possibly be boring? Because it is.

Even without making comparisons to the original, this has so many problems it's difficult to know where to begin. Chiefly, I didn't give a toss about any of the characters in the movie. Utah is a sulky, uninteresting dolt and has about as much of a dangerous edge as a tennis ball. Bodhi straightfacedly spouts the sort of mystical-tinged bollocks you'd happily cross the street in fast-moving traffic to avoid. Pappas is....actually, what function does Pappas have other than show up every twenty minutes to criticise Utah's handling of the case and to tell us the odds on Wayne Rooney scoring the next goal? Sorry, that joke won't travel outside the UK but I was compelled to make it.

The rest of Bodhi's crew fares no better. They're a charisma-free bunch of extreme sports bores, one of whom doesn't even manage to shock the audience by snowboarding off a cliff and plunging thousands of feet to his doom. When that happens and you're thinking "What an idiot" rather than mourning his tragic demise then you know you're not sufficiently wrapped up in the characters to think it's anything other than uninvolving fiction.

As the 2016 iteration of Lori Petty, Teresa Palmer initially looked like she was going to strike a blow for Point Break in terms of a new feminist angle, her introduction signalled by means of some righteous surfing action. Unfortunately, it's not long before she's making dinner for the other blokes and giving Utah a potential love interest.

Oh, in a move that will surprise almost no one, she gets summarily bumped off in the movie's second half trying to escape from a sub-Heat heist on a Euro bank which features some surprisingly obliging cops who lean out from cover just far enough to get shot. Again, rather than be taken aback by the reveal that the deceased robber is in fact Samsara (she has a hippy name, she grew up off the grid and she wants to stick it to The Man! Yeah!) there's more of a feeling that it's karmic payback for the endless drippy nonsense she craps on about whenever she's on screen.

The film is so forehead-slappingly inept that it even manages to flub its "Point Break" reference. No more is it about long-lasting waves, it's now a reference to the point at which someone breaks. Er, not really wanting to point (break) this out, guys, but isn't that "breaking point"? Have you ever heard someone say "I've just about reached my point break"? Only if you're talking arse of your out, I'm thinking.

Even as a mindless action movie, this doesn't cut the mustard as it's seriously lacking excitement save for a decent, moderately suspenseful free climbing sequence towards the end. Comparing this to the original makes things so much worse and the only thing this underpowered flick will probably succeed in doing is driving most of its viewers to savour the superior 90s vintage.

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