Writer: Kurt Wimmer (Screenplay) Rick King, W. Peter Iliff, Kurt Wimmer (Story)
Starring: Edgar Ramirez, Luke Bracey, Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer, Matias Varela, Clemens Schick
Plot: A young FBI agent infiltrates an extraordinary team of extreme sports athletes he suspects of masterminding a string of unprecedented, sophisticated corporate heists.
Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Verdict: Praise the Stunt Team & That is it
Story: Point Break starts as Utah (Bracey) loses a friend in a extreme stunt, seven-years-later Utah has worked his way up the ranks in the FBI, getting his first training position, with the first case he gets to investigate being about a string of extreme sports robberies from around the world.
Utah manages to go undercover within the group run by Bodhi (Ramirez) needing to report anything he learns to Pappas (Winstone), while trying to keep his cover a secret from a group that aren’t afraid to eliminate the problems within their group.
Thoughts on Point Break
Characters – Utah is the former extreme sports stunts man who lost a friend on the latest stunt, he rebuilds his life for the better becoming an FBI agent, with his first case putting him in a position of following his love of the extreme sports from the past or stopping crime from around the world, after he goes undercover in a criminal gang that are using the extreme sports to escape. Bodhi is the leader of the gang, he was a follower of the man who created the idea for creating extreme enlightenment and now has placed it into action, he believes people are responsible for their own actions and must live with the consequences. Pappas is the English agent that Utah must work under, he doesn’t like many people and Utah is no different, with his cocky ways only holding him back. Samsara is the love interest that sees Utah become more torn between the worlds as she isn’t a devoted follower in the same mindset at Bodhi.
Performances – It was always going to be hard for the actors to step into the shoes of Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, sadly both do struggling to get to the level of either of the original actors, with both lacking the charisma to show what it is to be in this world. Ray Winstone clearly enjoyed his pay-check for this film, while the rest just don’t get going either.
Story – The story here follows a rookie FBI agent going undercover in an extreme sports criminal team that are committing crimes from around the world. While this is a remake, the story does become a lot bigger than just a group of criminal surfers, we do get a bigger motivation behind the criminal actions, which is one of the few highlights in the film, the problem in the story comes from the idea that we spend more time just showing off the glorified stunts, we just get little to no character development, the original gave us that big moment when Utah couldn’t do the right thing and it had an impact, this doesn’t reach that level for that same moment. We could have easily had an original set of characters with the same criminals involved instead of leeching off a popular film and got a darker gritty story too.
Action/Crime/Sport – The action here is big stunt works, which should be praised, the team create amazing moments, but we can’t only have big stunts to make a film interesting, the crime side of the film doesn’t get very interesting, with most of the parts being after the criminal actions taking place. The sports again plays into the biggest extreme sports, without being anything that plays into the story enough.
Settings – The film uses the settings to take us around the world for the biggest stunt locations, it doesn’t help for the idea of the story because nobody else thinks outside the box, when they clearly know they are dealing with criminals that do extreme escape plans.
Scene of the Movie – The stunt work gets the most praise.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The script gets the rest of the weakness.
Final Thoughts – This is a pointless remake that could have stood taller being it own action movie and could have gotten its own legs for something bigger in the action world.
Overall: Pointless remake.
Rating