In 1991's Point Break, filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow proved an action movie can be simultaneously hard-hitting and soft as a California sunset. A crime thriller, a buddy-cop shoot-em-up, and a love story, Point Break injected a much-needed dose of sensitivity back into the genre with the story of rookie F.B.I. agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), the surf-guru bank robber named Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) he tries to take down, and the bond that borders on yearning the two men build in the process. It's a wonderful, thrilling movie that effectively changed the public's perception of how beautifully un-rugged an action leading man can be, and Bigelow earns that paradigm shift through the entire film; along with cinematographer Donald Peterman and his up-close-and-personal "pogo cam," she frames Utah and Bodhi's journey, all the way up to its sky-diving conclusion, like a simmering romance in a heist caper's body, a Shakespearian tragedy in sopping wet muscle tees. What's more astounding is the way Bigelow hammers home that aesthetic in the film's first three minutes. Point Break's opening credits feature two of the best character introductions of all time, a series of wordless images that tell you everything about who these men are, their subversions of the masculine ideal, and the ways in which their lives collide like a wave meeting the shoreline.
We meet both Bodhi and Utah soaking wet, but different kinds of soaking wet, a distinction you don't think is possible until you see it. Bodhi paddles a surfboard into the ocean at first light, the last grey in the sky giving way to a golden morning. Thousands of miles away, Utah sits on the hood of a car in the pounding rain, his reality a cold metallic blue, shotgun propped on his leg and a stick of gum nonchalantly popped into his mouth. He could be a ghost, some sad dead prince in a skintight t-shirt, or a statue, a marble monument to beautiful tortured men. But a whistle blows and Utah, still patently ignoring the rain, cocks his shotgun, the sound bleeding into the roar of the ocean an entire world away.
But while Bodhi and Utah are both enveloped by water, that age-old symbol of cleansing and rebirth, the two men differ in the way they cut through it. Utah tosses himself around a mud-covered shooting range with the type recklessness reserved for rookies, firing at target after target, bullets slicing through the rain. Bodhi is the bullet, fired hot out of the barrel, his body and board penetrating the waves in a way that is undeniably sensual. There's such reverence to the way Bigelow shoots Swayze in this opening—and that is Swayze, so insistent on doing his own surfing he caught four cracked ribs by the end of production—especially for how damn graceful he looks, less a person than he is an extension of the ocean spray. By comparison, Reeves bounds through the elements with aggression, with violence, the crack of gunshots overbearing next to the deep sense of calm permeating Bodhi's morning ride. Bodhi is fluid; Utah is stiff as the wooden targets he's pumping bullets into.
But Bodhi's also a shadow. Silhouetted against the sun, we don't see Swayze's face, only a dark outline carved out of the universe, more vibe than man. It's the personification of Bodhi's ethos, of completely losing yourself to the "wave" whether that actually means water sports or it low-key means armed robbery, but it's also foreshadowing of the climactic moment in which Bodhi literally loses himself to the "ultimate," having finally pushed that ethos too far. (You'll notice that ending takes place as the pouring rain pounds the ocean, the final collision of these two opening shots.) But Utah? Oh man, we see Utah. As his colleague calls out "100%, Utah"—of course he shot 100%, as if this gorgeous former college quarterback has ever shot less—Johnny Utah turns to the camera and gives inarguably the goofiest smile in the history of action cinema.
Everything about this moment is perfect, from the decision to cast Reeves in this role only two years off of Bill & Ted in the first place, to how unexpectedly it ends this opening set of images. This montage of masculinity, of crashing ocean waves and shotgun shells, absolutely smashes into Johnny Utah's "seeing your parents waving from the stands at a little league game" thumbs-up and grin combo. The sheer force of Keanu Reeves' aw-shucks turn to the camera has the power to make you reevaluate masculinity, the true undercurrent of this movie. One man so in-tune to his adrenaline rush he's barely a person; the other, the one with the gigantic shotgun and 100% accuracy, is hardly more than a boy. An out-of-control wave headed for a rocky outcropping too stubborn to move. Point Break.
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By: Vinnie Mancuso
Title: Why Point Break Has Two of the Best Character Intros of All Time
Sourced From: collider.com/point-break-characters-surfing-keanu-reeves-patrick-swayze/
Published Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2021 16:32:10 GMT
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