Point Break (1991)

Director:

Kathryn Bigelow

Writers (WGA):

Rick King (story) &
W. Peter Iliff (story) ...

Release Date:

12 July 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama | Sport | Thriller

Tagline:

100% Pure Adrenaline.

Plot:

An FBI agent goes undercover to catch a gang of bank robbers who may be surfers.

Plot Keywords:

Surfer | Undercover | FBI | Mask | Beach

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Patrick Swayze	...	Bodhi
Keanu Reeves	...	Johnny Utah
Gary Busey	...	Pappas
Lori Petty	...	Tyler
John C. McGinley	...	Ben Harp (also as John McGinley)
James LeGros	...	Roach (as James Le Gros)
John Philbin	...	Nathanial
Bojesse Christopher	...	Grommet
Julian Reyes	...	Alvarez
Daniel Beer	...	Babbit
Chris Pedersen	...	Bunker
Vincent Klyn	...	Warchild
Anthony Kiedis	...	Tone
Dave Olson	...	Archbold
Lee Tergesen	...	Rosie

Also Known As:

Johnny Utah (USA) (original script title)
Riders on the Storm (USA) (working title)
Gefährliche Brandung (Austria) (Germany) [de]
Caçadores de Emoção (Brazil) [pt]
Dödens utmanare (Sweden) [sv]
Extrême limite (Canada: French title) (TV title) [fr]
Le llaman Bodhi (Spain) [es]
Murdepunkt (Estonia) [et]
Myrskyn ratsastajat (Finland) [fi]
Na fali (Poland) [pl]
Peklenski val (Slovenia) [sl]
Point Break (Sweden) [sv]
Point Break - Extrême limite (France) [fr]
Point break, Punto di rottura (Italy) [it]
Punto de quiebra (Uruguay) [es]
Punto límite (Argentina) [es]
Ruptura Explosiva (Portugal) [pt]
Stin kopsi tou kymatos (Greece) [el]
Tacka prekida (Serbia) [sr]

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, language and brief nudity.

Runtime:

120 min

Country:

Japan | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Dolby SR (35 mm prints)

Certification:

USA:R (Violence) (Adult language) | Iceland:16 | Denmark:15 | Canada:18 | Italy:VM14 | Ireland:18 | South Korea:18 | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Netherlands:12 | Norway:15 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (original rating) (cut) | UK:18 (video rating) (uncut) (1992) | USA:R | Singapore:NC-16

Filming Locations:

Beryl Street & N. Catalina Avenue, Redondo Beach, California, USA

Company:

JVC Entertainment Networks

Trivia:

Another title considered for the movie was "Johnny Utah", but Patrick Swayze's star was still on the rise, and the idea was dropped.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: As Warchild stands by the window, Utah comes running in from the adjacent room and tackles him through it. If you look carefully, you can see him actually sitting in a crouching position for a few seconds before his cue to come running in.

Quotes:

Surfer: You're about to jump out a perfectly good airplane Jonny, how do you feel about that?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Brice de Nice (2005)

Soundtrack:

Rose Colored Glasses

Great "new age" action thriller

Katheryn Bigelow's 1991 action thriller "Point Break" is still a ground-breaking film of the early nineties. It tells the story of the cop John Utah (Keanu Reaves) hunting a bunch of bank robbers camouflaged with masks of the former U.S. presidents. His investigations leads to a group of surfers and extreme sports worshippers, and the cop becomes fascinated by the free-style philosophies and adrenaline rushes of the gang around the charismatic leader Bodhi (Patrick Swayze). Their close friendship changes to a hard-fought rivalry at the end when cop and gangsters face point blank.

Bigelow uses typically American surf beach settings for this unusual and very stylish action thriller with great stunts like parachuting scenes, bank robberies, a car chase, police raids, martial arts, breath-taking chases and brilliantly photographed surf sequences. Watch out for the Red Hot Chillie Peppers as a gang of brutal surf nazis beating up Keanu Reeves and being captured by him during a hard-fought police raid.

But "Point Break" is even more than that - it also shows the lifestyle of the nineties in many ways. Bodie and his gang are a group of New Age-like grunge guys reaching out for the most extreme adrenaline experiences. They stand for the new style of extreme/fun sport worshippers, ravers and new spiritualists of the post-yuppie era in the nineties who don't care about wealth and status symbols but for fun, action, breaking the limits and finding the sum of all senses. "Point Break" is not only a well-done example of modern action entertainment without computer-generated special effects but also a very philosophical and spiritual study of society in the nineties.