Point Break

A dis­tinct lack of orig­i­nal­i­ty is evi­dent in this joy­less remake of ​’90s cult favourite Point Break. True to for­mu­la, this 21^st cen­tu­ry rein­ven­tion ratch­ets up the scale on every lev­el – more stunts, more masochism, more bore­dom. Keanu Reeves’ John­ny Utah (Luke Bracey) is reborn as a for­mer motocross star turned unlike­ly FBI agent, while Patrick Swayze’s Bod­hi (Édgar Ramírez) is an extreme sports enthu­si­ast/e­co-war­rior who under­takes eight tests of phys­i­cal and spir­i­tu­al endurance (known as ​‘the Osa­ki 8’) to give back to the world what he has tak­en from it. This attempt to boost the mate­r­i­al with a new-age envi­ron­men­tal con­science falls flat, as it’s devoid of any depth and Bodhi’s con­stant recourse to faux-enlight­en­ment spiel becomes quick­ly tiresome.

Sim­i­lar to the premise of the orig­i­nal, Utah goes under­cov­er to dis­cov­er whether Bodhi’s group are behind a string of elab­o­rate rob­beries. And that’s about all there is to it. This isn’t a film with any inter­est in telling a com­pelling sto­ry or show­ing any true affec­tion for or under­stand­ing of its source – it’s an advert for extreme sports, moti­vat­ed by cool stunt and set pieces. It’s com­plete­ly stripped of the humour, charm and bru­tal­i­ty which made the orig­i­nal remain in the col­lec­tive hearts of the pub­lic for so long. The few direct ref­er­ences to the orig­i­nal are shoe-horned in so crude­ly that they bare­ly reg­is­ter as lame nos­tal­gia. Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er-cum-direc­tor Eric­son Core pro­vides a cou­ple of decent­ly chore­o­graphed action sequences, but those are bereft of any ten­sion due to the stark hol­low­ness of the char­ac­ters and sani­tised approach of the script.

And yet, there’s a high cal­i­bre of act­ing tal­ent involved here even if no-one seems inter­est­ed in engag­ing with the mate­r­i­al. Utah’s FBI part­ner Ange­lo Pap­pas (Ray Win­stone) is crim­i­nal­ly under­writ­ten, while token love inter­est Tere­sa Palmer (Sam­sara Dietz) is so incon­se­quen­tial to the dour, testos­terone fuelled nar­ra­tive that the film would be no dif­fer­ent were she writ­ten out of it com­plete­ly. In addi­tion to this, the charis­mat­ic bro­mance between Reeves and Swayze is sore­ly miss­ing here, as Bracey and Ramírez seem more like casu­al acquain­tances at best. The only empa­thet­ic ele­ment is the char­ac­ters’ search for some sem­blance of mean­ing, because we’re also des­per­ate­ly search­ing for some among all these scenes of irri­tat­ing humans jump­ing off shit.