Pras on WorldFilms: POINT BREAK 3D

POINT BREAK Is Not About A FBI Story Or A Character Drama At All.  Its All About Extreme Sport & Its Spiritual Core That Drives People To Their Limit.

I expect a natural inclination to revisit and make comparisons to Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 cult action film of the same name that follows FBI agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) as he goes undercover to infiltrate a cache of Southern California surfers suspected of robbing banks. That’s about as I would encourage you to go as you walk in to watch this new film. While there are similar thematic elements that were used as inspiration, there is nothing of a remake at all here.

Here is how the typical description of this 2015 film would look like: Thrill-seeking criminals perform a series of daredevil stunts to steal money and gems, only to give it away to the poor and less fortunate. Training for a job with the FBI, young recruit Johnny Utah is handed the enigmatic case of Robin Hood heists in Mumbai and Mexico, in which American conglomerates were targeted and the loot was distributed among the poor.

Utah suspects that only extreme athletes could pull off these heists. He puts his extreme-sports experience to good use, identifying the perpetrators as fellow athletes trying to pass the legendary Ozaki Eight — a series of “Ordeals” honoring the forces of Nature around the planet, laid down by environmentalist-guru Ozaki Ono, who died attempting the third one.Utilizing his own special skills, Utah infiltrates the gang of athletes after befriending their charismatic leader, Bodhi (played by Edgar Ramirez).

As Johnny experiences the rush of their lifestyle, his superiors fear that he was being stretched between his loyalty to the FBI and his respect for the athletes and his passion for extreme sports

Ericson Core’s incarnation of POINT BREAK is really about one thing, extreme sports, and the film handles those sequences extremely well. Shooting in a number of treacherous and visually impressive locations, including Venezuela’s Angel Falls and the Cave of Swallows in Mexico. The locations are actually spread over Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France, Mexico, Venezuela, French Polynesia, India and the United States, all of which are spectacular in both their otherworldly beauty and their inhospitality.

Having cut his teeth lensing fast-track blockbusters like “The Fast and the Furious” and “Payback” before helming “Invincible,” Core, who also filmed the movie, has poured his expertise into devising jaw-dropping stunts and visualizing awesome natural wonders. The film starts with a daredevil freestyle motocross sequence in the Arizona desert that sees  Utah (played by Australian Luke Bracey) lose his best friend in a tragic accident.

What really sets it apart is having actual extreme sport athletes involved in the production and shooting the film, which offers some brilliant POV shots.  The outstanding visual effects fully taps into the cinematic potential of such dynamic sports as base jumping, sheer-face snowboarding, wingsuit-flying, free climbing and big-wave surfing. Aerial shots of the characters floating between the canyons like puffy cushions in their wingsuits are at once goofy and sheer visual poetry, while the scene in which Bodhi and Utah hang off a practically vertical cliff by their fingers is a milestone in novelty as well as composition.

The sheer range of sports represented here (surfing 70-foot waves, snowboarding, wingsuit flying, free rock climbing, and high-speed motorcycle stunts) through whiz-bang stunt choreography, were all performed by champions in their field. Core showed his true talent as a cinematographer, capturing some of the world’s most accomplished extreme athletes doubling as the film’s characters as they perform death-defying stunts against breathtaking backdrops which rival anything attempted by the Fast & Furious franchise.

Renowned extreme athletes performing stunts in the film included surfers Makua Rothman, Billy Kemper, Brian Keaulana and Ahanu Tson-dru; snowboarders Lucas DeBari, Ralph Backstrom, Mitch Toelderer, Mike Basich and Xavier De La Rue; motorcyclists Riley Harper and Oakley Lehman; wingsuit stunt pilots Jeb Corliss, Jon Devore, Julian Boulle, Noah Bahnson and Mike Swanson; and free climber Chris Sharma, as well as Bob Burnquist, Xavier de le Rue, Jeb Corliss, John Devore, Jonathan Florez, Laird Hamilton, Dylan Longbottom, Iouri Podladtchikov, Laurie Towner and Ian Walsh).

The rest of the incredible production team behind Ericson Core included  Oscar-winning editor Thom Noble (“Thelma & Louise,” “Witness”), production designer Udo Kramer (“North Face,” “The Physician”) and Oscar-nominated costume designer Lisy Christl (“Anonymous,” “White House Down”).

This distinctive superyacht Ocean Emerald designed by Sir Norman Foster served as the spectator-platform and a party place during one of the early scenes in the film of surfers competing against 70-foot waves crashing in Biarritz in the south of France.