Ah, my famous franchise retrospecting has returned! And now, debuting on my own my own site is THE FAST & THE FURIOUS retrospective! Join me looking back as we edge closer to FAST & FURIOUS 6 opening May 24th.
Point Break
1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Keanu
Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Lori Petty, John C. McGinley, Gary Busey, James LeGros
Rated R
You gotta go
down. You crossed the line and people
trusted you and they died.
~Johnny
Utah
So…you’re doing a Fast
& The Furious retrospective and you’re starting with Point Break?
Of course I am. The genesis
of the first film in the Fast & The
Furious franchise begins here. The
outline and overall narrative of Point
Break is almost beat for beat repeated in The Fast & The Furious.
You’re basically trading in surf boards for street racing cars. Watching them back to back, its even more
apparent.
How’s Point Break
hold up? I had only seen this movie
maybe twice before viewing it for this retrospective. A lot of people have championed it over the
years. And, as a serious piece of action
cinema, it doesn’t quite hold together.
But as a film with stylistic flare that’s goofy, over the top with
everyone going big, its still an entertaining watch. It’s a funny piece of time-capsuled late
80s/early 90s action.
The first thing that struck me with this film is how far
Keanu Reeves has come as an actor. No no
no…I’m serious! He gives an absolutely,
hysterically laughable performance it here.
In some ways it completely carries the movie. Every choice his is comically overdone. Its almost a shear work of brilliance. We’re supposed to believe this guy is from
small town Ohio, yet he’s dialect sounds straight of an SNL “The Californians”
sketch. I so BADLY wanted him to give
someone directions.
The rest of the cast turns up fun. Shockingly enough, the only person playing it
sort of straight and not taking it incredibly over the top is, of all people,
Gary Busey. But where he holds back John
C McGinley swings for the fences. Lori
Petty gives a nice, adorable performance even if the script asks her character
to be completely stupid at times. I also
couldn’t get over how much she resembled Courtney Cox. Although, at this point in their careers, I
guess I’d say Courtney Cox resembled her.
Patrick Swayze actually turns in a really good performance
here. He is even able to convey and sell
his performance merely with his eyes at times (he wears a mask during portions
of the film). He manages to make Bodhi likeable
and make it all the more disappointing that he is the film’s villain (since
Keanu is unable to). There’s a sense of
dread and menace Swayze is able to switch on at the point in the film when both
sides are aware of others intentions.
Once the jig is up between Bodhi and Utah we get to the
portion of the film that actually works really well. We sit waiting for someone to make a move,
even though we know its likely going to be Bodhi. Kathryn Bigelow directs her follow up to Blue Steel and is able, in the nutty
film to create a sequence that reigns suspenseful even if the film hasn’t been
taken seriously to this point. The film
features a lot of stylishly flashy surfing scenes that I think may have
inspired a young Michael Bay to make a career out of. The action scenes are very much grounded and
quite a bit graphic. In the over the top
department, the film does include some wonderful aerial work as a part of some
of its “wow” moments. It might be a bit
much, but its still impressive to see and fun to enjoy.
Okay okay, Brandon…get to the Fast & The Furious stuff.
All right, right down to a our undercover officers both ordering tuna
sandwiches from their love interests tied to the film’s main villains, we have
a lot of similarities. Both stories are
basically young fresh blood police officers going undercover to infiltrate and
expose a group of robbers and in the process getting too close and unable to
make appropriate judgment calls. Its
probably a product of bad acting, but Paul Walker is INCREDBILY channeling his
inner Keanu. Point Break offers surfers
robbing banks and Fast & Furious has streetracers robbing semis. Both live and die by their craft, making car
or surfing analogies every waking moment of life. The film’s leads both get in a relationship
with a woman very close to the villain that ultimately is the thing clouding
their judgment, making them slightly choose the crooks over the cops. Johnny Utah and Brian O’Conner both so badly
want this other rival gang to be the real bad guys and lead a bust on them that
proves incredibly wrong only more hammering home what they don’t want to be
true. Also, the conclusion of the films
both share the detective letting the crime boss walk.
As you can see, there are major similarities. There a more, but I’ve not set out to chart
all of them. This was to take a look
back at the film that brought the beginnings of The Fast & The
Furious. I’m willing to bet it was
pitched at the studio as “Point Break
with cool cars!”
BONUS
-A little bit about No
Man’s Land-
Also, in my Fast &
Furious research, this little film from 1986 is being credited with the
birth of The Fast & The Furious. While there are elements in play (certainly
the undercover cop falls for the crime boss’s sister being key), the obvious
riff for The Fast & The Furious
is Point Break. It’s clearly the movie its trying to
reinvent. No Man’s Land isn’t for a big loss though. It might just be the best and most grounded
has the best peformed drama of the three films.
Its fun to see actors like Charlie Sheen and Randy Quaid during a time
when they were looked upon in a more serious light. This movie is actually kinda fun nostalgic 80s watch if you’ve got the time. DB Sweeney probably puts the best work in
between him, Keanu and Paul Walker. To
be honest, I didn’t even know this movie existed until this retrospective. I’ll probably never watch it again, but I
mildly enjoyed it.
Next Up: The Fast
& The Furious
Paul Walker grins at the camera, Vin Diesel’s shouting
sounds like Ja Rule’s rapping, Corona’s and TED LEVINE!
No comments:
Post a Comment