Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
This week on Action Sequences With Brutal Efficiency:
Keanu Reeves (“Jeff,” from Paula Abdul’s Rush Rush video) stars in Point Break, a film masquerading as action cinema but in truth a haunting meditation on identity, lawlessness, and the futility of resisting the ocean’s will. (Or at least we assume Werner Herzog would describe it that way.) Johnny Utah, a former quarterback now shackled to bureaucracy, descends into the chaotic underworld of surfers who rob banks not for money, but for meaning. At their center is Bodhi—part surfer, part philosopher, part doomed Icarus—whose search for the perfect wave mirrors mankind’s eternal desire to conquer nature, only to be obliterated by it.
We speak of masks—both literal and existential. Of skydiving as an act of metaphysical surrender. Of meatball sandwiches, consumed with the desperation of men who know the void. You may think this is merely a buddy-cop thriller. You are mistaken. This is about the death of the self.
Also, Gary Busey is in it.
Joe’s Back of the Box
Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is a fresh faced FBI agent assigned to investigate bank robberies with his grizzled partner. Following a hunch, Johnny goes undercover with local surfers. There he meets the legendary Bodhizafa (Patrick Swazie). Part mystic, part cult leader, part time bank robber? As Johnny gets closer to Bodhi’s orbit will it consume him or will he be able to pull the rip cord in time? The philosophical thriller has everything you could ever want, sand, surf, and a love affair for the life less traveled.
The REAL Back of the Box
I don’t get the love for this movie. While I love Kathryn Bigalow, this movie is one big terrible trope/amalgam/every bad late 80’s early 90’s action movie. In fact, hot take, I have never liked this movie. The love for Bohdi is unearned as we get to see his madness take hold throughout the movie. I don’t know if there are scenes without yelling. The writing is barely passable. And the acting rides the line between amateurish and straight up laughable. For all the Point Break stans out there, come for me in the comments. I dare you.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Joe: Greg, in the movie we watched…. It’s really a love letter to extreme sports. Do you remember when we lived together and we tried our own hand at extreme sports when we went snowboarding on New Year’s Day?
Greg: This seemed like just the greatest idea. We were going to be brand new people. It could not have backfired more for me and my identity. It was so brutal how hard it was.
Joe: My favorite memory of this favorite probably in hard air quotes. I think I made it down the mountain twice, but I remember going down this hill and then all of a sudden, literally, my board came off my feet, hit me in the shins, and then went down the mountain, and I ran into you.
Greg: Sitting down at the bottom of the hill. Yeah.
Joe: And you said when you saw the board coming, you knew it was coming right after it. Yeah. I don’t know if you remember this. You lost your keys. And so that. So calm had already been snowboarding once or twice and was, like, significantly better than everyone else.
Greg: Well, first of all, he knew how to put his board on.
Joe: Yeah. Super annoying.
Greg: He was so good at it.
Joe: And so we basically had the, like, pile into someone else’s car and get a ride back from Mount Baker. It was rough.
Greg: They seemed a lot better at action sports than the movie was this week. Yes. All right, well, should we get to the show?
Joe: Let’s do it.
Clip: Not tragic to die doing what you love. You want the ultimate. You’ve got to be willing to pay the ultimate price for the ex-presidents are surfers. You’re trying to tell me the FBI is going to pay me to learn to surf? Fear, hesitation. Hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true. I’ll take you to the edge. Past.
Clip: It’s going to be a great day, Johnny. The taxpayers would like it. You toss. They knew that they were paying a federal agent to surf, pick up girls steps. They find the correct term as babe, sir.
Clip: What?
Clip: Are you gonna become?
Clip: In 1991.
Greg: Kathryn Bigelow teamed up with Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty, John C McGinley, and, of course, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to make a movie called Point Break. Unbelievable. I think I just messed up the intro, but we’re going to go with it anyway. Joe Skye Tucker. This is an incredibly exciting moment for me.
Greg: I cannot wait to hear what you’re about to say. What makes Point Break a great bad movie?
Joe: I might be the wet blanket on this up for that. I don’t know that I like the movie. Point break.
Greg: Oh, did you ever.
Joe: I don’t know that I ever did, like I like that. Okay. It might be my least favorite Keanu Reeves movie. And I, as you know what? I’m in the tank for Keanu Reeves. More than probably anyone should be, quite frankly.
Greg: Okay, let me throw some titles by you. Okay. The lake house.
Joe: I’ll take that over this movie.
Greg: Johnny mnemonic.
Joe: Oh, John. Mnemonic as far superior.
Greg: Really? Really. Constantine.
Joe: I haven’t seen it, but I’ll take it over this movie. And I’ve heard that. Okay, people coming to Constantine.
Greg: So you will blindly take any matrix three. Oh.
Joe: It might be a push. It might be like even money on either one.
Greg: Okay, make your case I am. I am shocked to hear this, by the way.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: How did I not know this? I thought we were best friends. Yeah.
Joe: We’ve done this movie before. Way back when we were figuring out what this podcast was. So. Yeah, sure.
Greg: So this is a rerecord, but that was a long time ago now.
Joe: Yeah, like 3 or 4 years ago.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: It’s filled with early 90s, late 80s tropes everywhere.
Greg: Go on.
Joe: Like one of my drinking games. Spoiler alert again, early spoiler for a drinking game. Take a drink. Any time there’s a scene in this movie where there isn’t screaming or yelling happening. Okay, I didn’t really like the characters. I found them kind of. All of them annoying.
Greg:
Joe: The writing is rough, the acting is worse, and the plot is even like more nonsensical to me. The only redeeming qualities of this movie are Kathryn Bigelow’s direction and her amazing use of a handheld in this movie. Yes, so she saves this for me and for how she directs it. I know that people love Bodie and Patrick Swayze in this movie, and he is probably the most interesting character in it, with the most interesting arc to me, honestly.
Joe: Yeah, but everything else around it is just.
Greg: So.
Joe: Mind numbingly loud and in your face and annoying in a way that I just. This time it got to me. I couldn’t I had to watch this over two nights. I even pause it in the middle of of an action scene because I was just so done with it. So that’s where I am on this movie. Maybe the last time I ever watch this point break.
Joe: I struggled with it. So talk to me off the ledge on this, because I know you probably like this movie more than I do. I think clearly, based.
Greg: On your reactions to.
Joe: Me crapping all over it.
Greg: I might not think it’s rock bottom the way you just described it. I don’t think I disagree with much of what you said. I do think the acting is better than the script.
Joe: Yeah, barely.
Greg: For this movie. Yeah.
Joe: That’s not a high bar.
Greg: Yeah, well, I think I think this is a great bad movie. I think it is, despite what it is. It’s a great bad movie almost. And I think that it succeeded because it was playing with the tropes that we wanted it to have, but it was also kind of subverting them at the same time. It’s hard to look at a movie that has a character like Bodie in it, where one of the most charismatic, biggest stars is the bad guy.
Greg: But also, you like him, you know, movies tried to replicate that and sometimes it successfully was done, but usually not to this degree. It was never Patrick Swayze. And so I think Patrick Swayze and Bodie go down as one of the best bad guys in movies. If you can view him as that, as the leader of the bad guys, he is the bad guy in this movie.
Joe: Yeah, he is the bad guy.
Greg: So I don’t think this movie has a bad guy problem. It has one of the most interesting bad guys of the great bad movies we’ve covered so far. It’s an unsettling movie where you kind of don’t know where it’s going. There are a lot of moments where I’m reminded, oh, right, this happens and I don’t remember what happens next.
Greg: I’ve seen this movie a million times, and that happened to me last night when I was finishing it. It’s like, where do we go from here? I don’t remember, and so I think that’s a credit to the storytelling in that it’s not a great bad movie by numbers, even though in a lot of ways it’s giving kind of that ham sandwich to the person who needs a ham sandwich, you know.
Greg: But I think absolutely, the star of the movie is Kathryn Bigelow. And what she’s able to do and the sensibility that she brings to it by coaxing the studio to allow Keanu Reeves to be the star by bringing in Lori Petty, almost like as a stunt casting of what the studio wouldn’t want the female lead to be. Those three things alone make this a movie worth checking out from 1991.
Greg: Yeah, and they invented, like, camera rigs so that camera people could sprint behind people who were running at full pace. This is before, like, cameras had a digital screen on them. And so there’s a scene in this movie where they’re running as fast as they can. The person could not have a Steadicam rig on them because they were too heavy and run that fast.
Greg: So they’re literally just holding a camera that has a wire sticking out from it, roughly showing what they think it’s filming as this person is running at top speed. And so they’re keeping, you know, the person running in that wire, like that coat hanger thinking that’s about where the shot is. But they didn’t really know. And it’s great.
Greg: And it’s it’s really kinetic in those ways. It definitely makes me want to go check out more Kathryn Bigelow movies. I think the movie right before this was Blue Steel, which was also kind of a subversive movie with Jamie Lee Curtis and Ron Silver, who is the funniest person in history. So I can’t take my eyes off Ron Silver.
Greg: Yeah, I think he’s the funniest person in film.
Joe: And he’s a and in that movie he is awful.
Greg: These are like, oh really? I’ve never seen it.
Joe: Oh I have I it’s been a long time that I’ve seen it. I hated him by the end of the movie. Okay. You know, it’s one of those where you kind of cheer when the bad guy gets killed by Jamie Lee Curtis.
Greg: He’s kind of the point break of the movie, then, is what I hear you say. You really disliked.
Joe: Him. I really dislike them. Yeah, I just I struggled with all the noise around the edges of it, of the pairing of the young work fruit and the old salty veteran. I think I would have liked it better if they just, like, turn the volume down just a little bit.
Greg: Really.
Joe: Be a little bit more subtle because it’s like, to me, every scene is played at 8 to 10 instead of 5 to 7. And then when you get to the big action scene, then you can take it up to ten and that I just got tired of it by the end. Sure. Honestly, just the yelling. And then Brody’s got his semi deep aphorisms that he does, you know, and like the choices they’re make.
Joe: Yeah, I just I got to the point where I was like, why? What? They know he’s an FBI agent, but they’re going to take him skydive even now.
Greg: It’s disorienting. Where is this movie going exactly?
Joe: It’s because the writers don’t know where it’s going. They’re just like, we paid for the plane, so we’re going to use some skydiving shots. And then with one of those movies where it’s a more interesting premise and I think Patrick Swayze delivers probably one of his best performances, and it’s a character that just somehow resonates without him and that character.
Joe: This movie just becomes almost unwatchable to me. And without Kathryn Bigelow, like those two things, like even Keanu Reeves can’t save it for me. He is actually part of the problem. And so it does. It gets tiresome. That’s the that’s how I felt. By the end of it, I was like, oh, this. I’m tired. I’m tired of this movie.
Joe: But I can still love it. Like there’s that scene where they’re running through houses and around and it is so well shot.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And her as an action director and just as a director, I feel like I’m in good hands. I just felt like the material wasn’t strong enough for her.
Greg: Yeah, that could be. I mean, she was with James Cameron at the time, and they did kind of an uncredited full pass of the script right before they started shooting. You notoriously don’t like James Cameron’s writing.
Joe: Oh.
Greg: And so he probably did not help this movie out for, you know.
Joe: He sure did.
Greg: He was the one who said, let’s make the robbers, the ex-presidents. And, we can add that layer on to this movie, which I thought was a pretty successful layer to have in the film. It made it slightly interesting. I remember the marketing for this movie. That was the thing. Oh my gosh, she’s got a Reagan face on.
Greg: You know, Reagan had been president in three years before this came out. Right. But let’s talk about Spacey. There’s a lot to unpack. I just said we have a lot to talk about here. Let me give you the three movies that Patrick Swayze was in before this movie came out Roadhouse, Next of Kin, and Ghost.
Joe: Two of the three will we will for sure do on this.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And anyone who wanted next of kin. You’re out of luck. So I’m sorry.
Greg: Oh, by the way, when was the last time you looked at the cast of Next of Kin?
Joe: Okay, let me see if I can do this off the top of my head as Liam Neeson.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: And Patrick Swayze, he might be the only one two that I can pull off. Right. The second.
Greg: Helen Hunt.
Joe: Okay, it’s got a crazy cast. I do remember that.
Greg: Bill Paxton.
Joe: Okay, Adam Baldwin. Awesome.
Greg: Ben Stiller’s in the movie. Is that not strike is a little weird here. We’ve got Ted Levine. He was in heat. He was in Shutter Island. He was in The Silence of the lambs. Del close, the man who basically invented improv. Other people that you would recognize. But that’s a pretty impressive list of people that we still know.
Greg: Yeah. Now, from 1989. So Patrick Swayze is. He’s, leading man in ghost, and he is an action star in Roadhouse and Next of Kin. And now he’s a bad guy. It’s a pretty good. He’s four for four. I’ve never even seen next of kin. I’m gonna say he’s 44. And it was downhill pretty quickly after that.
Greg: I guess he was in city of Joy. But then after that, there, you know, Donnie Darko. To Wong Foo, there’s a couple high water marks, but, that was his run. That was his, you know, bullet proof run right there, uncredited in the player. That’s a solid move. Everyone who knew what was up in 1992 was an uncredited actor in The Player.
Greg: Yeah. So I think Patrick Swayze is bringing something to his role in this movie that many people wouldn’t have. This movie’s better because he’s in it.
Joe: A great Keanu.
Greg: Reeves is such an interesting choice for this movie. I think in this role, he shows everything he can and can’t do a great it’s a classic Keanu Reeves role.
Joe: It is a classic Keanu Reeves role, for sure, and it’s, to me a precursor for speed and some of what, yeah, what else he does. And it does show he can be an action star. All of that. And still there are moments in it where I even I am struggling with Keanu Reeves, the actor, and I am forgiving beyond like I, I own my blind spot and biased with Keanu Reeves.
Joe: And there are a couple moments in this where I struggled. And it’s not just him. There are plenty of bad acting moments to go around for a lot of the cast, especially kind of the motley crew that surround Bodie, moments around the campfire and and then like, where did these.
Greg: Are these just like, like.
Joe: Friends of the cast and crew that day? This kind of threw in there?
Greg: Probably.
Joe: Yeah. Again, there are pieces of this movie that I love, and there are a lot of it that I just struggle with. Like, to me, if they made it today, they would not have that much yelling, like, oh, it’s just like that felt like a trope of the time, you know? John C McGinley.
Greg: Well.
Joe: Consider the actor. Yeah, 50% of his lines are always yelled, no matter what is in honestly.
Greg: I mean, he still thinks he’s in platoon. That’s the movie that Oliver Stone made from what, like 8687 won Best Picture? Yeah. Every interview I’ve ever seen with that guy, he talks about. Well, you know, when we were making platoon, he was interviewed for that show scrubs, and he said, well, you know, when we made platoon, we really went to the jungle.
Greg: And so for this one, we’re really going to a real hospital. It’s like, that is a stretch. Mr. McGinley. You just wanted to talk about how you in plots.
Joe: Yeah, and I would too.
Greg: But oh my gosh, God bless him in this movie for being like the police chief who is really angry at the rogue cops. And they’re kind of even playing by the rules. He’s upset with what they’re getting when they’re undercover. They ruined another investigation by making a wrong call by raiding the wrong house. And Tom Sizemore shows up.
Greg: It was his case that was ruined. Yeah. Tom Sizemore is like a 90s David Harbor where he should just be in everything. Also time Sizemore, just as a person. He was always yelling in movies as well. Right. We learned that in Striking.
Joe: Distance pretty much.
Greg: A lot of yelling and striking distance from what was that, 89?
Joe: It’s right around the same time. I mean, that was just like, that’s just what you did. Early 90s cop movie lethal Weapon. I feel like does the same thing.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Gary Busey is in it. And both of those.
Greg: I mean, yeah.
Joe: I was watching this in bed next to Jillian and she just could not stop laughing every time they were yelling and not. And then you start. No, like, I didn’t even really notice it until she started noticing it. And then. Yeah, like, that is why a drinking game of mine is when they do not. Yeah, you have to take a drink in a scene because it is every single scene almost.
Joe: They get to a point where they’re yelling so many conversations in moving vehicles or around planes or in planes.
Greg: So mid skydive.
Joe: Mid skydive.
Greg: They’re not yelling as much when they’re skydiving for some reason where. That’s funny. I did not feel that as much as you did, but I did notice that the movie really slowed down literally with the film, but also just with the vibe whenever they showed the ocean or whenever they showed the surfing. Yeah, incredible surfing footage in this movie.
Greg: Yeah. My only note is I would have gone a little bit slower. I would’ve gotten John Woo on the phone and said, how slow should the slow motion be? But they really are kind of showing the piece that can happen there. Maybe there’s some sort of theory there where she’s saying, you know, it’s like that song all this time by saying, you know, it’s just the river flowing, you know, we’re just angry people thinking we’re all important.
Greg: And the whole time the ocean waves just keep coming. Yeah, I’m sure, I’m sure there’s some sort of theory like that. This. This movie. Whenever Patrick Swayze, he talked in this movie, I was like, this kind of has sting written all over it for me. I feel like this is what it’s like to hang out with sting.
Joe: I could totally see sting playing this role, like what they offered him first.
Greg: 100%, 100%. He didn’t quite have his yoga body quite there. Yeah, exactly. But there was there were definitely people in culture who were very much like Bodie, you know, at that time they were pretty, pretty, woo woo. But we have to pause for a second and hear John see him again, because this is the greatest thing that happens in movies.
Greg: When the police chief or in this case, I guess the FBI chief is just screaming at them fully, just satisfying a trope. That’s all he’s doing here.
Clip: Special Agent Utah, this is not some job flipping burgers at the local drive in. Yes, the surfboard bothers me. Yes, your approach to this whole goddamn case bothers me. And yes, you bother me and Pappas. Oh, for the love of Christ, just how the hell did I ever even let you talk me into this whole boneheaded idea to begin with?
Clip: Harp, we’re working undercover. It takes time. We produced a few. No no no no no no. Let me tell you what you’ve produced over the last two weeks. You two have produced. Exactly. Squat. Squat. During which time the ex-presidents have robbed two more banks. Now, for Christ’s sake, does either one of you have anything even remotely interesting to tell me?
Clip: Caught my first tube this morning.
Greg: I think that was all just entirely the setup. Like you go super big so the laugh will be harder. But also, while he was screaming, I just loved him. Like I love an angry police chief and it seems like they didn’t quite know it was such a trope yet. Yeah.
Joe: But that is the classic called In the Lieutenant’s Office and we’re going to get yelled at from Beverly Hills Cop to totally. Every movie has that. The best part of so I Married an ax Murderer is the relationship that his best friend has with Alan Arkin, who is the police chief who was like the nicest guy in the world.
Joe: Yeah. And he was like, why can’t you just pull me into your office and yell at me about, you know, staying on track and what the higher ups are doing is like, I don’t really want it to like, one person. I kind of report to like a quorum of people.
Greg: And it’s it’s.
Joe: The funniest sendup of that trope. That’s what makes that movie for me. That and Mike Myers is kind of annoying. Now in.
Greg: Retrospect, but is he to.
Joe: Me? We tried to watch that movie and I couldn’t. He was like, I loved him back then and it doesn’t age well. I just find him and like Austin Powers and and and those movies now just really challenging to watch.
Greg: All right. Do you remember that we talked about that scene in the fall Guy episode. We were talking about hanging from the helicopter. You know, that part of the helicopter that you can hang from? Yeah. That’s right. Ellen. I was like, yes, I know that part. I think that all the time. Well, that sounds like a lot of fun to see here.
Greg: Two nice. Anyways, you should go listen to the fall guys. Yeah. So that was a super fun episode that we recorded.
Joe: One of the greatest movies ever made.
Greg: First of all, the Fall Guy. Absolutely. It’s all downhill from the fall guy afterwards. Okay, let’s talk about the films that Keanu Reeves had done this before. This Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and Dangerous Liaisons. He was in parenthood. I’m not saying these in order. And then Point Break, basically, there are other films in there, and then Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, and then my own Private Idaho, and then he was in a Paula Abdul, video.
Greg: He played Jeff and the rest, rest video. Keanu plays a really good Jeff. I’ve always said that. Yeah, I think Keanu Reeves is good at the humor in this movie. I think he is believable when he is running around and like, shooting and and punching. I think he does a good job at the fights. I guess we don’t really see him surfing.
Greg: Well, I definitely don’t buy at the end that he’s been through such an adventure that he’s throwing his badge away. That moment just is like, what? How did that stand? Yeah, but you know, I mean, knowing now how he has played on his bill and Ted’s kind of actually kind of surfer persona, even though he’s from Canada to his advantage.
Greg: I think he’s just played that really well. I think he who he is makes us automatically lower the bar a little bit, and then he consistently clears that bar in a movie which, like, I didn’t know he could do that. Yeah.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: So I love him in this movie. I think he’s great in this movie. Even though there are a couple moments where it’s like, can we have done another take? Yeah.
Joe: Yeah, I feel like that with a lot of people in this movie, and I’m especially forgiving of Keanu Reeves and that’s, you know, he’s got that thing where he’s likable and it shines through on film the same way that Steven Seagal shines through as unlikable. Even when he’s the hero.
Greg: I mean, he should be shot. Yeah.
Joe: And that’s that’s not an easy thing to have, though he does have that IT quality to him.
Greg: In retrospect, I really wish there was a lot more Lori Petty in this movie, too. Yeah, I think Lori Petty is incredible in this movie and not given as much to chew on as as I wish she had gotten.
Joe: Yeah, because she’s on a run right now. Like this is where she’s starting to hit her peak because she’s got this league of their own.
Greg:
Joe: I don’t know if Tank Girl could be considered in that. That might be the end of her.
Greg: It was high profile. Yeah. She’d done a lot of TV. But the year before this came out she was in Cadillac man which was kind of like a high profile movie with Tim Robbins and Robin Williams. Is that right? Yeah. Roger Donaldson directed that.
Joe: It’s a good movie, too, from what I remember.
Greg: So Cadillac Man, Point Break, A League of Their Own, Free Willy, which was a massive hit filmed up here. Poetic justice with Janet Jackson was not a John Singleton movie. Yeah, it’s a John Singleton movie.
Joe: I think so, yeah.
Greg: In the Army now with Pauly Shore and then Tank Girl, I’m kind of skipping around a little bit, and Tank Girl was supposed to be such a big movie, it was marketed to death, and then it was such box office failure. I think it’s had kind of a life that has maintained through to today, where it’s celebrated in different corners of the world.
Greg: And then it was kind of like, I hope she can get some work. When she did, she did work. Orange Is the New Black is the thing that probably a lot of people have seen her in, and she has written and directed some of her own stuff. She was in that show Station 11, which we talked about a couple episodes ago.
Greg: Again, I need to see that show. People have texted me like, you really need to watch that. You need to get over your pandemic thing and watch that show. It was really good. So Lori Petty is incredible in this movie, and she was not at all what the studios wanted. And I feel like Kathryn Bigelow kind of like made some magic happen here with casting of the kind of people she wanted to see on the screen.
Greg: And so I really liked Lori Petty in this movie. I think she’s pretty incredible and should have been given a lot more to do. So that’s that’s a weakness of the movie for me. But getting back to what you were saying, I do agree with you that the pacing of this movie is really bizarre. And they in the first ten minutes, it seems like they have rushed through every trope in the book know, and it’s like, oh, we’re already here.
Greg: And then over the course of the next hour and 50 minutes, they really linger on stuff. It’s like, we should have done another pass on this section of the film. I agree that, the pacing of this movie, I think it is a tightening up.
Joe: Yeah, it feels like I could be, in today’s kind of parlance, prestige TV. So it could have been like a 6 or 8 episode TV show with kind of the different sections of this. You could have done a little bit more of a deep dive into Brody and his world, and because my favorite arc of this is when you first meet him and kind of through the movie, are like eyes.
Joe: So what, he’s a bank robber. They don’t hurt anybody. Sure, but by the end of the movie, you kind of see his character has come out and he’s you see the the violence and the anger underneath everything and the decisions that he’s making that are pretty selfish. And that arc is really interesting to me. It’s hidden amongst all the yelling to me.
Joe: Kind of give a little bit of this. A similar arc with, you know, Keanu Reeves of like growing up and kind of understanding his the allure of action sports and stuff like that. But that’s not as interesting as kind of the corruption of Bodie. You know, we have up here in the northwest, you know, they make a body off, beer and a Johnny Utah one.
Joe: If it’s on the menu, I’m picking Bodie over Johnny Utah, even though they’re very similar to me, and I like a both.
Greg: So I went to the store before we started recording this, because the Georgetown brewery in Seattle makes Johnny Utah and Brody’s off, and I had a very long minute staring at these two boxes, trying to figure out which one I was going to get. Yeah, I went with Johnny Utah because first of all, these IPA people just need to calm down.
Greg: I need to take a stand against these IPA people. It’s just socially acceptable. Have a license, just call it what it is. Oh, do you want a loaf of bread in a in a can? Here you go. Also, I just thought, I think I need to get Johnny Utah because, it’s a pale ale. And, I think if I have to vote between who I’m for in this movie.
Greg: I got to go. Johnny. Utah. Yeah.
Joe: I am with you there. Except for anytime. It’s on the menu and I have a choice. I pick both these are five.
Greg: I did pick up this this beer thinking, but the other one’s more delicious. Is just.
Joe: Slightly. But you know.
Greg: But I don’t think I need a more delicious beer in my house. Yeah, I don’t need to be drinking much. So.
Joe: Yeah, we don’t need to make alcohol more enticing is basically what we’re.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: As we’re both drinking while recording this.
Greg: I mean, just a peek behind the curtain. It felt like a stretch to even buy a beer. I was like, do I really need beer in the house? I totally don’t, but we’re recording the point break up. Yeah. You know, and the Georgetown brewery is awesome. So I want to support a local business. But in response to all the yelling, yelling is a shorthand.
Greg: And so I feel like they probably spent their time figuring out how to capture skydiving. How do you, make these characters more interesting, how to work with the script that they had been given that, you know, probably needed some work. And so they went with the less nuanced yelling all the time. And I think that’s that’s the shorthand.
Joe: And that’s of the time. I mean, if I think back on the second greatest Christmas movie ever, Die Hard two, sure, the percentage of yelling in that movie is incredibly high as well.
Greg: It’s a great point. Goodfellas lot a younger Goodfellas. The year was that the year before this?
Joe: Right around?
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: I think what makes Die Hard the first one stand out to me is there is yelling in that, but you have moments of quiet with like, Bruce Willis and Reginald Veljohnson talking and then with the bad guys with Hans Gruber there moments. And I think that that’s stands out to me like that’s the counterpoint of like, you can use it for effect, but when it’s in almost every scene, it loses that impact and just becomes tiresome.
Joe: For me, that’s that was my.
Greg: I think you should watch this movie again. All right. Because one thing I did notice was they would occasionally put stuff in that surprised me. Like when Keanu Reeves and Lori Petty are sitting on their surfboards in the ocean under the moonlight, and there’s this shot of them just kind of sitting there, and she’s doing the thing where, like, you squeeze your hands together in the ocean and it’s sports water.
Greg: And the other person, maybe they were just doing this between shots or something, but there’s an extended shot where she’s just doing this Keanu Reeves and it’s making him laugh. And it is such a human moment between these two people. Maybe they knew they were filming, maybe they didn’t I don’t know. But I thought it was such a choice for Kathryn Bigelow to put that in this movie.
Greg: Like these are real people that are just kind of like enjoying getting to know each other, you know. I did not expect that from Point Break when I was watching it this time.
Joe: You know I like that scene there, there are those scenes are few and far between for me. There are a couple other moments like that where it’s like Keanu Reeves is clearly about to break, like he’s about to laugh at some things. But he said.
Greg: And like, you can.
Joe: See him kind of smile and turn away from the camera, and then they cut it like real quick. So there are moments where they bring in some of that. They just where they just weren’t enough for me to.
Greg: Well, he was sharing scenes with the fire cracker. Yeah. I can’t believe we’ve gotten this far into this without bringing up Gary Busey.
Joe: Yeah, I have to say, yeah, Gary Busey is not even the problem with the yelling.
Greg: In this movie. That’s how much there is. And this is this peak, Busey.
Joe: This is peak back to me. He is good guy Busey. Because to me, he was always like the henchman, bad guy, Lethal weapon, Mr. Jacob.
Greg: Yeah. You can’t trust a person with bleached hair like that. Oh.
Joe: And and I still remember that the first time I saw the scene and Lethal Weapon, when, like, the bad general, like, burns his arm and it’s. It was, like, the most shocking thing in the world.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. Like, oh, my God, I can’t believe how crazy this person is that they wrote this character. So yeah, it’s probably his peak. Busey this pre motorcycle accident.
Greg: Post.
Joe: Post. Yeah.
Greg: And so I think we’re starting to see the signs of his head trauma that happened in late 88. And you can kind of see that as a dividing line. And the choices he’s making on screen. And I think those choices kind of mirrored who he was in real life as well. He was he was losing some impulse control, which in these years made his performances so great.
Greg: Yeah. And you can see that he’s just messing with everybody that he’s sharing the frame with the whole time. Yeah. Like literally just trying to mess with them the whole time. Like I have this pizza box and I’m going to like slam it on this other guy sitting in his car to just mess with him. You know, he’s just constantly doing stuff to mess with people.
Greg: And I feel like he does that to counter Reeves quite a bit. He’s just messing with him.
Joe: Yeah, and it works. I mean, his character works and, you know, he’s kind of, so great. Yeah.
Greg: Let’s listen to the intro of Busey in this movie. Happens. Yeah.
Clip: They put on a blindfold. I want to see to retrieve at least two bricks off the bottom.
Clip: I. Two? Yeah.
Clip: I’ve been in the field for 22 years. I fired my piece over 19 times in the line of duty. I got no idea what a blind man fetching bricks from the bottom of the pool has got to do with being a special agent. Added to which indignity I have been saddled with some blue flamer. Quantico. Get some quarterback punk Johnny Unitas or something.
Clip: The shit they pull, Yeah, Angie. But here’s your guy. What?
Clip: Badass Angelo Peppers, punk. Quarterback punk.
Greg: It’s a solid intro.
Joe: It’s a solid intro.
Greg: He sells himself. Although what he said, he’s been doing it for 23 years and he’s used his gun 19 times in the field. Yeah. I feel like 19 is not a very high number or it’s a.
Joe: Really high number.
Greg: Or it’s really high I guess. I don’t know I don’t talk about this with the people that I know that are cops. Like how many times you used your piece in the field? Yeah.
Joe: I said you had been in the job 23 years and used your gun 19 times. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Yeah.
Greg: I’m not even a police officer. And I’ve used it 19 times in my job, so, you know, it feels low for a police officer. The yelling in this movie, I wonder if it’s that there’s a I feel like there’s an East Coast sensibility to it, even though it was taking place in LA. The characters all seem like Lori Petty I guess is from Tennessee, I think, but it seems like she’s from Jersey.
Greg: This was a very solid moment there. Meet cute is he is having trouble surfing for the first time. He’s like drowning. She saves them and then yells at him that he shouldn’t be there. And Mike says get out of here. And so he she’s going back out to surf and he’s on the beach, you know, kind of like trying to catch his breath.
Greg: This is what he says.
Clip: Hey, the name’s Johnny Utah.
Greg: Okay, I love it. Lori Petty just killing it. Yeah. My name is. And the girl saying who cares is the perfect me to it in a movie. To me, I loved that moment. I was like, whoever this character is, I’m on board. Okay. So Gary Busey, we’re a couple years after his head trauma. He doesn’t get to skydive in this movie.
Greg: But he wasn’t dropzone which was classic snipes just three years after this. And I think we will get to dropzone eventually.
Joe: I’m sure we are long overdue to do a Wesley Snipes movie on this. Yes.
Greg: So yes.
Joe: Now we may have to do that as the next movie.
Greg: Gary Busey has the moment in this movie that has stuck with me the most ever since I saw it, and it’s anytime I feel like I need something and it’s something that I really like, I decide I probably need two of them and it comes from this scene. Oh no, I didn’t, I first of all, I don’t have this in this clip, but Gary Busey is giving the most hilarious performance reading Calvin Hobbes and just like losing his mind and how funny Calvin and Hobbes is.
Joe: As we all did in the early 90s.
Greg: But then he says this.
Clip: It’s time for lunch.
Clip: Angela. It’s 1030. Right around the corner there is a sandwich shop. They sell meatball sandwiches. Best I’ve ever tasted. Would you go get me to come on back to.
Clip: Thank you.
Greg: Goes out the window.
Clip: You talk. Give me two.
Greg: So we’ve we’ve talked about how if there are three helicopters, that’s a Tony Scott of helicopters. I think if there’s two of something it’s just a Utah or something then.
Joe: And as someone who is probably one of the biggest sandwich aficionados on the planet, haha, if you have the opportunity to get two of the best tasting subs you’ve ever had, you take that every day.
Greg: So absolutely, Johnny Utah, by the way, it’s the 90s now. He goes and gets two meatball subs for Gary Busey, and then he gets tuna on wheat for himself.
Joe: He eats a lot of fish in this movie. And that kind of also disgusted me a little bit.
Greg: Does he? Interesting.
Joe: He orders that. And then when he goes and recruits Lori Petty to be his surf instructor, he gets shrimp and fries is what he orders. And that’s that’s right, that’s right. That’s real gross.
Greg: They did a good job of filling out this world. There’s a kid at the surf shop when he’s, like, buying his gear. That is pretty hilarious. This kid is like 11.
Clip: He made a lot of guys your age learning to surf. It’s cool. It’s nothing wrong with it. I’m 25 and I’m saying it’s never too late. I hope you stick with it. Surf is the sauce. Change your life. I swear to God.
Greg: Surfing is a source. Amazing. I don’t know who that kid is, but I love him. It’s just unbelievable to look at this movie and think there’s only one point break. But there are a lot of movies that imitate point break. Most notably The Fast and the furious, because there’s been 11 of those, or it’s about to be an 11th movie, not including Hobbs and Shaw, which how dare I say it, Hobbs.
Greg: Well, yeah, but we have mentioned a few things that have obviously made me think of The Fast and the furious. First of all, he loves a tuna sandwich. Wasn’t it a tuna sandwich that Paul Walker liked it? Me as coffee shop.
Joe: I think so.
Greg: Johnny Utah works for the FBI. And Paul Walker only worked for the LAPD in the first Fast and Furious, but moved on to the FBI by the fourth.
Joe: Okay. Important question. Yeah, yeah. Paul Walker Keanu Reeves.
Greg:
Joe: Which actor is the best actor?
Greg: Which actor is better than the other, you mean? Yeah, I think either of them are the best actor. Yeah, I think Keanu Reeves wins.
Joe: Yeah, I think so, too. All right. Are you ready for the back of the box?
Greg: Oh, I am so ready for the back of the box.
Joe: This would have been a movie. And it’s even possible that it’s a movie that we both would have or did rent at Blockbuster Video a long time ago.
Greg: So, yeah, 100%. Multiple times probably. Yeah. Wow. I bet we enjoyed it back then.
Joe: Probably. Yeah, maybe. It’s the back of the box. Johnny Utah Keanu Reeves as a fresh faced FBI agent assigned to investigate bank robberies with his grizzled partner. Following a hunch, Johnny goes undercover with local surfers. There he meets the legendary Bodie Sapphire. But Patrick Swayze, part mystic, part cult leader, part time bank robber. As Johnny gets closer to Brody’s orbit, will it consume him, or will be?
Joe: Will he be able to pull the ripcord in time? This philosophical thriller has everything you could ever want sand, surf and a love affair for the life less traveled.
Greg: Wow. It’s thoughtful.
Joe: It’s thoughtful. Yeah. This is your typical action fare. Although it is. But this back of the box is really leans into into it.
Greg: That was a less yellow back in the box than the real back of the box probably had.
Joe: Yeah, real back of the box. That’s going to get a little real here in a second.
Greg: So all right Joe. So that was the marketing back of the box. Give us the Honest Joe guy Tucker. Real back of the box.
Joe: I don’t get the love for this movie. While I love Kathryn Bigelow, this movie is one big terrible trope amalgam. Every bad late 80s early 90s action movie. In fact, hot take. I’ve never liked this movie. The love of Bodie is unearned as we get to see his madness take hold throughout the movie. I don’t know if there are scenes without yelling.
Joe: The writing is barely passable, and the acting rides the line between amateurish and straight up laughable. For all the point Break stands out there. Come for me in the comments. I dare you.
Greg: Is there a movie that this has been market corrected by? Is there a better point break?
Joe: I would argue that fast and fair, the first Fast and Furious is a better point break.
Greg: Okay, it’s ten years later, so it definitely had the benefit of being a bit more modern. Here’s my question to you about this movie that I think people give this movie a pass for that I’m uncomfortable with, and that is how horrible the LA music is from the late 80s, early 90s. This is like just the seconds before Nirvana released nevermind.
Greg: Yeah, where we thought there might actually be cool music coming out of LA. Guns N roses had just been a thing. This isn’t like necessarily the worst hair glam bands from LA, but they’re the worst hair glam band adjacent bands.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: I think the music in this movie kind of bleeds over into other parts of it that just make me go, oh, that’s kind of stupid.
Joe: Yeah, I agree with that. When we get to what album is this? I think it’s going to make your day one. Milo, help me with that, my son. And it’s perfect in every way. Okay, but I 100% agree the music and even the score in this movie is crazy rough.
Greg: What on earth is it doing? I don’t think you watch this movie for either, I hope.
Joe: No, and if you do, God help you.
Greg: Yeah yeah yeah, yeah. Completely agree. There’s so many times where like, what is the score doing all of a sudden?
Joe: There’s the scene. There’s the second skydive scene where Keanu Reeves jumps out without his parachute and he’s like, yeah, yeah, coming to Bodi. It’s the longest shot of him. Slowly, slowly. And like, the score in the background is kind of doing the psycho violin. No, just like over and over again. And it’s it’s kind of painful. There are moments.
Greg: In.
Joe: This movie that it’s just, Yeah, they the music could be upgraded significantly.
Greg: Mark Isham is the composer of this movie.
Joe: Yeah. Shots fired at Mark Isham, right? Yeah.
Greg: I’m so sorry. I’m so glad you got to do Best Picture winner crash from 2004. And oh, 2016 is the account I take back to everything I’ve said.
Joe: That’s the greatest score I’ve ever heard.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. So early 90s LA is super annoying and was completely market corrected by our friends up here in the northwest.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: And so that is a bit of a stain on this movie where it’s kind of like, oh, I really don’t love this era of music. And the people who made this movie were in LA. They were trying to find punk rock bands that would be actually something that surfers were listening to. I think they kind of succeeded in that.
Greg: It’s not as bad as it could have been.
Joe: Yeah, but.
Greg: Still could have been so much better, I think. Another thing that really kind of surprised me about this movie was we were talking about Gina Prince-Bythewood and The Old Guard, and we were talking about how that movie seemed like it was kind of like it was Kathryn Bigelow influenced. Yeah, and I definitely saw that when I was watching this this time, except I heard this great interview with Gina Prince-Bythewood when we were kind of researching that movie, and she said, I just don’t understand why every time we see the female character lead in a movie, we need to lead with their sexuality.
Greg: That’s the beginning of our knowledge of that character. When she said, it’s not like that, doesn’t have to be a thing. But like, I just don’t think that needs to be the first thing we discover about these, you know, living, breathing characters. And I just thought, what a great point. And so then it’s interesting when we meet Lori Petty in this movie, and there’s this very long kind of male gaze watching her get dressed under her towel.
Greg: So it’s not like you see anything, but it’s like, why are we seeing that? Why are we watching this? Yeah. And why would a why would Kathryn Bigelow film this like this? And I just thought, I guess the fact that Kathryn Bigelow is doing it and this is her choice for this character, I’m more accepting of it than I would be if this was like Michael Bay.
Greg: If Kathryn Bigelow wants to lead with Lori Petty’s sexuality, I guess that’s the choice that I would trust Kathryn Bigelow to make, you know. And I thought that was kind of that was funny. I was like, all right, well, as long as Kathryn Bigelow is doing it, I guess I’m okay with it. It’s not like they’re showing anything, but they are leading with that.
Greg: Maybe we’re trying to see this through Johnny Utah’s eyes and he’s attracted to her. I don’t know, but I thought that was interesting. Like, why am I accepting of this here? But I would be just scoffing at it in any other film that I watched. I think it’s because I trust Kathryn Bigelow.
Joe: Yeah, I trust her too, but I only to a point on this. I think that this is of the time.
Greg: To totally know. Yeah.
Joe: And having seen a fair amount of her movies, you know, I feel like she’s tightened up in ways that she probably has more power now, you know, from Zero Dark 30 to The Hurt Locker to even Strange Days, which is after this, it might be her next movie, which is a pretty interesting movie with Ray finds and Juliette Lewis and I haven’t seen it in a while.
Joe: I don’t know how it holds up. Kind of sci fi.
Greg:
Joe: Futuristic Vincent D’Onofrio is in it. A lot of those like that guy in it. But yeah, I mean I yeah, I don’t know how much credit to give her on, you know, how she’s directing then versus now or. But I do trust her as a director I think is is the best way to put it. Yeah. She doesn’t put things in movies frivolously or just for the male gaze or the female gaze or, you know.
Joe: Yeah, but you could have totally cut that scene out of the movie and it wouldn’t have changed appreciably. So, you know. Sure. Who knows?
Greg: In reading up on this movie this week, I read that this is widely considered the first female gaze movie.
Joe: I mean, outside of that scene in like the last scene with Lori Petty in it, when she’s running in a slip to Keanu Reeves in the desert. Right. I would agree with that, because there’s a lot of shots of, like, Henry’s and Patrick Swayze, the and the and the like group of men, surfers running around with their shirts off and those sorts of things.
Greg: So yeah, it’s a little bit like the Top Gun volleyball scene.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Gina jeans with no shirts. Yeah.
Joe: And anyone who’s ever tried to run in jeans that are wet, you know, that that is highly unrealistic that they’re actually playing football in.
Greg: So there’s just enough here for me to really kind of consider this a real movie. I don’t know if the skydiving scenes need to be as long as they are. But I completely take it for granted now that we can shoot in eight K and then crop it down to 4K. So you’re missing a lot of what you actually shot.
Greg: You’re able to crop all that out these days. This was filmed with real cameras with film in them. Yeah. Well skydiving and the way that the cinematographer was able to invent stuff so that they could do this and really get into people’s, you know, faces and see them pretend like they’re having a conversation or the way that they were able to get five people jumping out of a plane in the same frame in the way that they did, is just I completely take it for granted.
Greg: And in 1991, that was just unbelievable what they were able to do with real film cameras. So I think the fact that it goes a little long, I kind of I think I’m forgiving of it because it was just like, this is unbelievable that they really did this. This really adds up to something here.
Joe: Yeah. I had the same thought of even the surf scenes, and I know some of that surf stuff is around kind of building up the, what it means within the movie. But those scenes are a little bit longer than they would do now or, you know, shot or cut in a different way. And I had the same thought of like, okay, this is like the runway in Fast and Furious six, where it’s.
Greg: Like.
Joe: This is the longest anyone’s ever free falling.
Greg: Out of a plane.
Joe: Yeah, but I am totally okay with it. Yeah, I get what they’re going for.
Greg: They’re having full conversations.
Joe: Yeah, well, conversations about skydiving.
Greg: Without a parachute. Yeah.
Joe: But also, I know that, you know, you don’t set up a shot like that and that’s put it in there for 30s. You’re not there. Right. You know.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And so I have the same I can forgive these, these pieces of the movie because I know of the time and a lot of like skydiving shots now or are done just on green screens or they’re not even jumping out of real planes and stuff like that.
Greg: So this is Patrick Swayze really jumping out of a plane. You know, they had to actually demand that he stop jumping out of planes because they were getting worried. There were a couple things went wrong. Apparently. He like there were a couple life threatening things for Patrick Swayze. He was like 37 years old in this movie. He jumped out of a plane.
Greg: It was something like almost 60 times while while filming this. I think he did it maybe a time or two after they demanded he stop. But then they eventually were like, we can’t insure you in this movie. Like you’re going to get fired, but they show him just doing crazy stuff. Jumping out of planes. Yeah. I remember the trailer of this movie was him saying audios amigo and then just falling out of the plane, it’s like whoa, Patrick Swayze, he just fell out of a plane and they just hold the shot as he falls down.
Greg: It’s pretty incredible.
Joe: Yeah. They don’t I mean, outside of Tom cruise, I don’t know that there’s an actor today that’s doing stuff like that.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. The other like his henchmen. It was also kind of clearly them in a lot of the shots. That was very cool. There were so many shots in this movie where it is not Keanu Reeves and it is his stunt man. Yeah, and I guess they looked similar enough that you kind of don’t care. But there are a few moments where it’s like extended times where you can totally tell that is Keanu Reeves stunt double, but yeah, no Reeves in the scene.
Greg: I love it for that. What do you think of Anthony Kiedis showing up in this movie as one of the, like, evil surfers on that on the bad beach where they, they have that the bank robbers are from?
Joe: It was also it’s I keep getting those checks, you know, a moment of, you know, trying to bring some realism. It’s hard to believe that, you know, Anthony Kiedis is a Nazi when none of them are like skinheads or any of that. There was no, like, Nazi paraphernalia. They just said the word Nazi a couple times about that.
Joe: Yeah, sure. But it was awesome to see him in that like days before under the bridge blows up. You know to me.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. Same here.
Joe: And it’s a good point around the music. Like if this just happens a year later if they hold their release. I bet the music in this movie. Yeah, is so different. It definitely needed a dirty or grungy or sound to me on the music.
Greg: Totally.
Joe: But it is what it is.
Greg: So this was probably filmed around the same time as singles in Seattle. Singles. More famous soundtrack than a movie. Yeah, but it was filmed by Cameron Crowe. You know, Pearl jam is in the film as a fake band, and then that movie was shelved and didn’t come out for months and months and months and months. And then when grunge kind of broke, the studio realized, wait, we have a movie with these people?
Greg: Yeah, yeah. So I guess I would trust Cameron Crowe over Kathryn Bigelow, I suppose. Yeah. And what music I should be listening to. But that’s interesting. Anthony Kiedis shows up and here’s his one line.
Clip: That would be a waste of time.
Greg: His foot gets shot and he pretends like that hurts. Yeah yeah. So good job Anthony Kiedis I mean like flea was in back to the future wasn’t he.
Joe: I think so, yeah.
Greg: He showed up in everything forever. And so from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So Joe. So you know when you are face to face with a bad guy.
Joe: Always, and.
Greg: You’re not sure if you should shoot him or not? Because you’re kind of you kind of grown to like him, and he’s climbing over a fence and you clearly have a shot. What do you do in that moment? Do you take the shot?
Joe: I think you got to take the shot.
Greg: You take the shot. Okay? Yeah. You know what I usually do?
Joe: Yeah. Tell me.
Greg: I usually, turn my gun towards the sky and unload my gun into the sky and yell, no, really?
Joe: Loudly.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, that’s just what I do. Here’s a moment that I did that.
Greg: Let’s just call that Tuesday in my life. Yeah. Let me go through a couple more clips here real quick, okay. Just to kind of show what this movie is like, here’s a scene where Keanu Reeves is not getting through his lines as well as as we need him to.
Clip: What else they got on it? I still haven’t found anything I can really use. I got to find an approach. Oh, man, here we go. Both parents, deceased. Airplane crash, San Diego 84. Yeah, definitely.
Greg: He hasn’t quite mastered talking to himself and looking at a computer screen yet. Yeah. The other actors in this movie, I think, do elevate what they are given, which is the secret to every great bad movie. Here’s one reason I really liked Lori Petty in this movie, when people are being ridiculous, she says something like this.
Clip: You want the ultimate. You got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It’s not tragic to die doing what you love. So I want to go, well, I ain’t going to live to see 30.
Clip: Oh, it’s too much testosterone here.
Greg: And then she just walks away. I feel like she’s like the every person in this movie is like, yeah, get over it. That’s ridiculous. Okay, Joe. Well, is there anything else you want to say about Point Break before we get into the box office?
Joe: I feel like I have I have denigrated this movie.
Greg: Enough shots have been fired.
Joe: Shots have been fired.
Greg: And not in the sky the way I expected.
Joe: No. Directly like, center my ass. So if you disagree, come for us in the comments on Instagram. You know, sure at great bad movie show send us you know what’s your take? You know I’m I’m going to be pretty hard on this movie. So I want to know why why I’m wrong. Tell me why I’m wrong. Everyone. America.
Greg: If someone comes after you, my reaction will be like what? Johnny Utah’s reaction was like when Gary Busey was shot. One of the greatest knows in history. Let’s hear it.
Clip: No. Oh, no. Oh.
Greg: It’s so amazing. All right, Joe, well, should we get to the 1991 box office and critical reception to the movie Point Break? Desperately need to.
Greg: This movie. I don’t have the budget right here with me, but I think it’s $24 million. And it made 43 million in America, 40 million internationally. So $83 million. This movie made pretty good. Yeah. This is also when video home video was going nuts. And so while those numbers aren’t available for VHS or DVD online, I have to think this movie made quite a bit of money in both of those spots.
Greg: So a success.
Joe: A little shocking that there wasn’t a sequel based on that success. I mean, we’ve seen movies with that’s made way less money than even just what the box office was get many sequels. So yeah, pricing to me.
Greg: Well, around 2007, there was one point break in dough was planned. The story envisioned Bodey surviving and the action moving to Bali. That’s a big leap. But he needs to survive the end of this movie as he’s surfing the 50 year storm in Cannon Beach, Oregon for Australia. And John Dumont was slated to direct and Patrick Swayze was expected to return.
Greg: And then obviously Spacey sadly passed away in 2009. So we have 80 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes from this movie. It’s a little tough with the Rotten Tomatoes and old movies, but many of them are old, not just retrospective reviews that have, you know, either brought it up or pushed it down. What do you think the current critical reception on Rotten Tomatoes is for Point Break.
Joe: Besides our our stock 70%, because it feels like a 70% movie.
Greg: It really does feel like a 70, doesn’t it?
Joe: Yeah. I feel like critical reception of this was going to be higher. So I’m going to put this at like 77.
Greg: It’s a 70.
Joe: 70. Oh. All right.
Greg: Yeah. Right down the middle. There’s 100,000 ratings on Rotten Tomatoes from the audience. What do you think the audience score is? The popcorn meter.
Joe: I go a little higher. 75, 79.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, you you’re right. Tomato got is strong as usual. So let me read a couple reviews for this movie. Critics were, I’d say they were level headed, but surprised at how much they liked this movie. That’s kind of the that’s the consensus. Janet Maslin of The New York Times said, A lot of the snap comes surprisingly from Mr. Reeves, who displays considerable discipline and range.
Greg: He moves easily between the buttoned down demeanor that suits a police procedural story and the loose jointed manner of his comic roles, and that people are kind of surprised by what he was able to do in this movie.
Joe: I mean, this is really his first action movie.
Greg: Yeah. And yeah.
Joe: Maybe first real dramatic turn, but probably like his real action star turning role. So. Right.
Greg: Yeah. So he had done some drama, but not that we had seen. Yeah. We should say he is a quarterback in this movie. Johnny Utah a name that was derived from Joe Montana from the 40 niners. Joe Montana became Johnny Utah. Awesome. This movie was conceived of in 1986. So that makes sense. Yeah. With the 40 niners back then and he had never thrown a football in his life.
Greg: Being from Canada, it shows. Yeah, they don’t show much of him. They show him throwing the football. But it’s always kind of like out of frame. So you really never see. Yeah much of anything. And it’s at night. So they hide it. Well that he has no idea how to throw a football in this movie. All right. The Hollywood Reporter says while the critics may yammer interesting.
Greg: This is a review about what they anticipate the reviews will be. While the critics may hammer Point Break delivers the thrills, spills and crunches that its action hungry audience demands. True? Yeah, the Austin Chronicle says Bigelow stages the film’s action sequences with a brutal efficiency. They almost redeem the movie, but you can’t keep the increasingly silly script in check.
Joe: But I agree with that. And what? How was that described?
Greg: Brutal.
Joe: I feel like that’s a great description for her movies.
Greg: Brutal efficiency. That’s.
Joe: Yeah, efficiency.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: I feel like she has just leaned into that. She doesn’t make easy to watch movies.
Greg: No. Yeah.
Joe: And so and I appreciate that about about her stuff Detroit.
Greg: I didn’t even see a distributor so such a gut punch. Roger Ebert said the plot of Point Break summarized invites parody. Rookie agent goes undercover as a surfer to catch bank robbers. The result is surprisingly effective. Three and a half out of four stars. All right, Mel Minnow movie mom says the script is so lame and it achieves a sort of magnificence and the stunts are superb.
Greg: Yeah, agreed.
Greg: That’s a great bad movie. So lame it achieves a sort of magnificence. We could have named the show that. Yeah, exactly. All right Joe, should we get to some drinking games.
Joe: We have our stock drinking games. If you wanted a silent helicopter. Boy do I have good news. You have to wait two hours. Yeah. Till the very last scene. But then you get classic silent helicopter out of nowhere.
Greg: On a beach.
Joe: Gloria.
Greg: And do they land in, arrive while they’re fighting, and they don’t do anything to intervene with the fight? Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah.
Joe: I was going to give, Silent Helicopter more for the the plane than the low flying planes and the conversation that are happening in planes.
Greg: Yep.
Joe: But I didn’t need to because we get a silent helicopter.
Greg: So at the end, yeah.
Joe: I have a quasi push in an in hand. So you’re drinking for that one? They’re talking about the surfers and then they’re doing some stuff on very, very old computers with the green screen, which I had as, someone who came up in these times, I think, when we lived together, I, I was writing papers for, for my English classes in college on a on WordPerfect.
Joe: Yeah, on a green screen. So but there is a push in enhance. No silent suffering and ringing in the ears. Or, when two people share a slow motion look in the middle of chaos. Surprising, surprising. Mr.. Opportunities all.
Greg: Missed opportunity might have pushed you over into enjoying this movie, and that’s probably.
Joe: Would.
Greg: Have.
Joe: Honestly. Opening credit scene does the title lock into place with the sound? Yes, with a wave.
Greg: Oh, it’s better than that. You want to hear it.
Joe: More than anything.
Greg: So once it locks into place, it flies at you and yeah, makes the explosion noise. It’s so awesome. Really great opening credits to this where point breaker kind of like moving the opposite direction. Very total recall. Probably the same people, let’s be honest.
Joe: Yeah it does. Flash back to dialog. There’s no CGI that I noticed in this movie. It probably is. But for the most part these stunts are done practically and and in frame and it’s awesome.
Greg: There’s a borderline comical day for night scene where they’re it’s supposed to be the moon, but it’s like super bright sun. Yeah, with a filter on it. And when he’s having his emotional conversation sitting on his surfboard in the ocean at night next to Lori Petty, that’s so clearly a stage. And there’s a screen with like, out of focus waves on it behind them.
Greg: So this is old school Hollywood tricks going on here in the sky.
Joe: So you can drink there or not. Yeah. Take it or you know, we’ll let that be your choice. Great. Bad shots. Not a lot, but there are enough in this. Damn it. I did not have inexplicably wet streets, missed opportunity, maybe inexplicably wet soundstage where they’re filming that. Yeah.
Greg: How that sound stage gets a wet. Yeah, I don’t know.
Joe: No. Give us the room or Interpol or smashing a cell phone, which is a newer drinking game. So those are stock drinking games. I toss it to you, Greg, sweetheart, what is your first drinking game that you have for this movie?
Greg: Anytime Anthony Kiedis shows up in a scene, take a drink it. That’s a.
Joe: Good one. I have surfing hero shots. Anytime there’s a surfing hero shot like montage of just surfing, take a drink. Yeah, I have other montages in there, so don’t worry.
Greg: Here’s my question to you. You might not be able to answer it. When we are introduced to Bodie and we’re seeing extended slow motion scenes of him surfing. Is that Patrick Swayze?
Joe: I highly doubt it.
Greg: I watch this on a big screen at my house and I was like, that is totally not Patrick Swayze but I, I’m questioning that right now. Why would they do that. Introducing the character I swear that’s not him. But maybe it is.
Joe: I doubt it’s him as no way. But.
Greg: Well, I think he did do quite a bit of surfing in this movie. Like a bit of it is him, right? Anyways, every time somebody is thrown to the ground, take a drink. This is something that happens quite a bit in this movie, maybe 5 or 6 times. Just bizarrely, people are thrown to the ground.
Joe: Yeah, I love that. Anytime you see presidents masks.
Greg: Oh, that’s really good. Every time they say Johnny Utah.
Joe: Like the full name.
Greg: Full name.
Joe: I love it, I love.
Greg: It. Yeah, it’s a name. They say the first and last name quite a bit.
Joe: Any time there’s a scene where someone doesn’t go take a drink, it’s.
Greg: What? They’re not yelling that makes you want to drink.
Joe: Exactly. It’s the negative space in this case.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any time they call Johnny Utah something like a hot shot or a blue flamer. There’s a lot of that in this movie where they’re kind of accusing him of of stuff.
Joe: Kind of selling the good guy in a way.
Greg: Yeah I suppose.
Joe: Yeah, yeah. Any time the waves crashing sound louder than they should take a drink.
Greg: How loud should they sound?
Joe: They turn the sound up on that, like the Foley person just leaned in.
Greg: You’re going to want more waves and cowbell.
Joe: They’re usually slow motion, which is another drink again, though. Could have been.
Greg: Slower.
Joe: But the wave sound is like elevated and everything else is depressed in the sound.
Greg: 100% okay, so who in the room while you’re playing this drinking game with your friends gets to decide if a wave was louder than it should have been? Is it the person to your left? Person to your right?
Joe: Both of them need to agree that it is.
Greg: They need to come in a quorum.
Joe: Yeah, I need to become to a quorum and make a decision on this though.
Greg: Okay, I love it, I love it. You need a Utah of people to agree.
Greg: For the start, I said that while Joe was drinking. I know I.
Joe: Almost do this for take. Not on purpose with that.
Greg: All right.
Clip: Utah, give me two.
Greg: Next drinking game. Every time somebody cocks a shotgun with only one hand. I know the ultimate late 80s early 90s move.
Joe: So much about this.
Greg: Is this movie so much?
Joe: I have every time you’re amazed by Kathryn Bigelow handheld shot action shots. I mean, so much of this film is shot on a handheld, and so much of the action is. And it is beautiful every single time.
Greg: Yeah. Do you mean like running?
Joe: Running? But there’s even just a lot of just. I feel like handheld shots within this movie where you really feel like you’re right there with them, even on shots that aren’t super action heavy. Mostly action.
Greg: Scenes. Yeah. Hey, that I forgot to mention that really long chase scene where Keanu Reeves is having a foot chase going after Patrick Swayze and Patrick Swayze. He still has his mask on. The reason Patrick Swayze he left his mask on in that scene was because Patrick Swayze flew to Europe to do press for ghost that day, and so that was his stunt double doing all of that running.
Joe: Yeah, that was a great scene.
Greg: It’s still a great scene. Yeah. I’m sure you can come up with some great philosophical reason. Yeah. Why Patrick Swayze, he was keeping his mask on in that scene. What was that philosophical reason? Joe?
Joe: He didn’t want, Johnny Utah to know who he was.
Greg: Yeah. I will say, though, every time I’ve watched this movie, I’ve gotten really nervous that they know that Johnny Utah is an FBI agent. Halfway through this movie, they find that out and every time it gets me and that’s when I realized, oh I think I think something’s happening with me. This movie is working because I am really worried for him right now.
Greg: Yeah. All right. Every time somebody references a bank robbery, take a dream.
Joe: I have any time there’s an action sports montage. Take a drink. And I could be surfing or skydiving. Really? Those are the two main ones. But football. Football? Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: Cutting surfer’s hair. Yeah. A few montages on this movie I love it. Yeah. Any time Patrick Swayze he says fear causes hesitation. And hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.
Joe: That makes no sense and I love it.
Greg: No. You need to start living your life like that. You haven’t been. And it shows. Yeah.
Joe: Absolutely. This kind of goes hand in hand with the loud waves, but slow motion shots of water. Take a drink.
Greg: Now, what’s the sound like? Well, this is happening.
Joe: It is elevated. So you’re basically split those up.
Greg: So two people in the room are taking a drink. Two people.
Joe: Are taking a drink on.
Greg: That. Okay, I love it. Every time one of the ex-presidents does his Richard Nixon voice when he has the mask on for a great bad movies party, this is a good one. It’s like 3 or 4, maybe.
Joe: Yeah, any time there is. This is of this time for action movies, especially the squibs that they have when people are shot are so extreme.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: So take a drink every time.
Greg: A.
Joe: Unrealistic squib bullet to shot happens.
Greg: It’s as if the bullet goes just under your skin and then does a 180 and flies out. Yeah. Like that pretty much.
Joe: It’s a really dangerous bullet.
Greg: I totally clocked that as well. Like what is happening? Yeah. All of these people are made of watermelons. Yeah. My last one is every time somebody says bowtie.
Joe: Oh, that’s a really good one. I love that one. All right. My last one is every time there’s a conversation in or around a plane that is has the engines on, take a drink. Look at how far more than it should like.
Greg: The door is open right there. Yeah. And I believe one person at one point yells what? Yeah. What? Yeah.
Joe: That’s the only.
Greg: Time just for realism. All right, Joe, how about we move on to Joe’s trope lightning round, aka signs? You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: I have added a trope thanks to one of our dear listeners sending it to us. It is the ragtag crew trope.
Greg: Who sent that in.
Joe: Matt 51079 yeah.
Greg: I know Matt.
Joe: All right. So Matt gave us the ragtag crew, which I have added to our trope, and that is the first one because we have the ragtag crew of surfing bank robbers in this movie. It’s a little bit of a stretch because it’s probably referencing the the good guys usually having a ragtag crew like in The Old Guard, but sure, because it’s a new one.
Joe: I’m giving it to you.
Greg: We’re throwing it.
Joe: In. Yeah, throwing it in, jumping into water, or when you’re underwater and the sound disappears. That happens in this movie, revenge is the driver, the protagonist at the end, especially when he’s trying to save Lori Petty.
Greg:
Joe: You kind of have an odd couple with Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey. We have Bodie as the charismatic bad guy or antagonist. There is a car crash where there is an explosion on impact action movie trope. Lori Petty is really the only woman in this movie. There is also a car chase where a hubcap comes off of a car.
Joe: Amazing. So good. Love it every time that happens. Duffle bag full of money. We finally have a bulletproof vest. Check when Keanu Reeves is shot and he rips off his shirt to show the bullet. Right?
Greg: More than once, I think.
Joe: More than once. Yeah.
Greg: He gets twice. Yeah, yeah. He doesn’t know that he has a bulletproof vest on until he’s shown it to the camera.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. We have checking if a gun is loaded and then the protagonist is captured but not killed right away, and then is saved by his wife. So they know he’s an FBI agent, and then they just take him skydiving because nobody knows what to do with them. You know, they’re like, yeah, let’s just kill him. He’s an FBI agent now.
Joe: Let’s get out of here. And he’s like, yeah, I know what to do with them. We’ll take him skydiving and then.
Greg: So no need to make sense.
Joe: Yeah, it doesn’t need to make sense. Just go with it. Oh, that’s so good. So that’s our trope lightning round.
Greg: I love it. All right Joe it is 2025. Is it finally time for someone to answer some important questions about this movie?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Joe, did Point Break hold up in 1991?
Joe: I think it did.
Greg: Yeah. And so let me ask a follow up question. Does it hold up now?
Joe: No, it doesn’t hold out to me at all. Where do you stand on this?
Greg: I’m going to say it does hold up in some ways with the filmmaking. I think what Kathryn Bigelow and her cinematographer were able to accomplish, I think I would rather another editor give it another pass. I think Gary Busey’s incredible. I think he holds up. He’s on his own page. Yeah. So he will always hold up.
Greg: Yeah. I think Patrick Swayze, he is pretty good in this movie. I think he holds up. I think Lori Petty was great and could have used more. I think she holds up. And this is the birth of Keanu Reeves being an action star, which is something that we’ve enjoyed for the rest of our lives. So yeah, absolutely.
Greg: So I think all kinds of parts of this movie do hold up. But if it came out this year, probably not. Yeah. So maybe the answer is less so maybe not really. Yeah.
Joe: And I think it’s a really good point around the editing. This movie could be trimmed by probably 15 minutes pretty easily.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Tightened up or even stay as the same length. But maybe some of like Lori Petty’s part is brought back in or you know, it gets a little convoluted. So I agree the editing could be tighter. Yeah. Much tighter. Yeah.
Greg: All right. Next question. How hard do they sell the good guy in this movie.
Joe: Really hard. I think at the beginning, especially with all the like Blue Star or whatever, and who he is first.
Greg: In his class, I’m sure he was first in his.
Joe: Class, first in class and then, you know, Johnny Utah, you know, football player. Yeah. Played in the Rose Bowl, all of that.
Greg: So it seems like they sell him as a football player almost more than anything else. Yep. Let’s hear them selling him as a football player.
Clip: I just think that’s a little out of line. Whoa, whoa. Cool it Roach. Don’t you know who this is? No I don’t know what this is Johnny Utah no Ohio State Buckeyes all conference. Remember number nine man. How you doing? Nice to meet you. No time for your number, man I knew, I knew you. It was the Rose Bowl three years ago, you see.
Clip: Right. You you did this? Yeah. That was one hell of a game. You have, you got nuked in the last quarter. So. Yeah, I got my knee folded back about 90 degrees the wrong way. Whoa. That’s why you never throw two years of surgery. Missed my window, went to law schools, did law school. You’re a lawyer? Well.
Clip: My life’s not over yet, man. You’re surfing. Players don’t surf. This one does.
Greg: Two cops, at least they finish it with. He’s kind of gained both respect and he’s in the gang. Yeah. All right. So next important question. How hard do they sell the bad guy.
Joe: Not in the typical way.
Greg: No. This is kind of respectable.
Joe: Yeah. They kind of sell body as this philosophical surfer guru guy. And I like it. It’s pretty like they do sell the bad guy, but not in the typical way you’re expect.
Greg: Not like in a cigar movie. Yeah, exactly. Is the leader. And Swayze’s performance makes it that believable.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: All right, Joe, I really want to know your answer. Why is there romance in this movie? No.
Joe: God, I don’t know. This was. I mean, I didn’t hate the romance in this of Lori Petty and Keanu Reeves, but it was not my favorite thing.
Greg: What was your favorite thing?
Joe: Favorite thing was, was, Kathryn Bigelow hand-held shots.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And Bodie. But it wasn’t totally out of place in this movie. Usually my reaction to in action movies is it feels like they shoehorn in the romance because they know that they got to throw that in there somehow.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, I felt.
Joe: A little bit more natural. But you’re more romantic than I am.
Greg: Greg. Yeah.
Joe: What did you think of the romance in this movie?
Greg: I wrote? Because life can have meaning.
Greg: And in my head it said like JFK. Because life can have meaning.
Greg: All right, Joe, next important question. Are we bad people for loving this movie? Well, you don’t love this movie. So, Joe, am I a bad person for loving this movie?
Joe: I mean, probably we’re both awfully bad people for having watched it, but it’s not the worst movie I’ve ever watched.
Greg: So where do I rank for owning it? Yeah.
Joe: I’m going to plead the fifth on that one.
Greg: Okay? Okay. All right, Joe, let’s get into some real tough questions here. Does Point Break deserve a sequel?
Joe: Absolutely. I am shocked that there isn’t 11 sequels to this movie.
Greg: Totally, totally what a sequel have been better than this one?
Joe: In some ways, I think it would have. I think they would have toned down some of the the tropes and the screaming. They would have amped up some of the action. So I think a sequel actually could have in some ways been a little bit better. But I’m I am surprised that there wasn’t a sequel to this.
Greg: I think if all of the principal players involved thought they should come back to make a sequel, it would have been better. Yeah, like a Lethal Weapon to Lethal Weapon two kind of scenario. Yeah. Okay. Does it deserve a prequel? No. Please.
Joe: No way.
Greg: I’m going to say 1,000%. Yes.
Joe: Okay. What’s your prequel on this?
Greg: Okay. Well, Joe, I don’t know if you heard, but there have been a string of bank robbers, and the robbers are suspected to be college football players.
Greg: So 28 year old sophomore Johnny Utah is recruited into the FBI to go undercover as a football player, a game he has never played before because he’s Canadian. Okay, okay. I’m in. I’m back in the scene for a scene remake, except with football or.
Joe: It’s basically point Break meets the replacement with.
Greg: Keanu. I never said 100%. There’s got to be crossover potential there. Yeah. All right. Should this movie have been nominated for Best Picture at the 1992 Oscars?
Joe: No way, no way. I would have, I would be. I’m more inclined to allow Top Gun Maverick in than I am.
Greg: Wow. So okay, okay, well, let me let me tell you the five movies that were nominated. Silence of the lambs.
Joe: Okay. Which won everything that year.
Greg: Beauty and the beast. Yeah. Okay. Surprising.
Joe: It’s not the first animated movie ever nominated for Best Picture or something.
Greg: Probably. Yeah. So where are we? Right now? Is this movie better than the beauty and the beast in your mind?
Joe: It might be.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: Shots fired at that. Beauty and the.
Greg: Beast. We’re two deep, and Joe’s already wavering. Yeah. The third movie nominated for Best Picture. Bugsy. Interesting that that’s probably better. Yeah, I bet you’re right. Directed by Barry Levinson. Yeah.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Fourth movie nominated JFK, Oliver Stone’s JFK.
Joe: Oh, that movie is a great movie. Okay, I’m in the tank for Oliver Oliver Stone.
Greg: Sure. Yeah. And that’s still kind of peak. Oliver Stone. The fifth movie was The Prince of Tides, which wasn’t that Babs Streisand and Nick Nolte.
Joe: Yeah, I will take this movie every day of the week over the Prince of Tides. So although Prince of Tides is a better movie than I thought it was going to be, I will say that.
Greg: Okay, and this was a worse movie than you thought it was going to be. So it’s like, oh, oh, I of that. So I’m just going to say maybe.
Joe: All right, I’ll allow it.
Greg: I’m more of a romantic than you. So there’s a chance Prince of Tides wins. But I will say point break that’s very near. And dear to my heart. So. All right Joe, how can this movie be fixed aka who should be in the remake?
Joe: I have a couple answers for this. So here’s my answer to this. I want Kathryn Bigelow to direct again. I want the Russo brothers to write it.
Greg: Go on.
Joe: I want Matthew McConaughey as body.
Greg: 100%, 100%, 1,000%.
Joe: Yeah. And I want Michael B Jordan as Johnny Utah.
Greg: Yes.
Joe: That’s solid. That is the movie I want. Okay. Now, Jillian, I was watching this with me and this was her answer. She wants Rick Moranis to star as Johnny Utah.
Greg: And either Steve Buscemi or.
Joe: The Long Island medium.
Greg: To be.
Joe: Voted off.
Greg: I mean, this just feels like both of those movies should come out in the same year, and we’ll let audiences decide. This feels like a deep impact Armageddon scenario. Absolutely.
Joe: How are you gonna make this movie better?
Greg: All right, well, I think it’s all downhill from Uranus and Buscemi and the Long Island medium. Who is that? It’s,
Joe: A reality TV show. Or someone from Sue from Long Island. She has, like, the world’s craziest hair, and she thinks she can talk to the dead.
Greg: Okay, okay, I’ll say I have a similar story where I was, in and of course, waiting to get on the ferry going to Friday Harbor because the band was going to have a show there in the Grange Hall. And I am getting some coffee with our old roommate, Cam Nicklaus, who was the guitarist in the band. And there’s like a psychic.
Greg: There’s like a palm reader and like a little hut, she’ll read your poems for $10. I only have $5 in my pocket, and we’ve got like 45 minutes until the ferry is coming. So we walk up, we knock on the door, she’s in this little hut with like five kids. And I said, can I get just a single palm reading?
Greg: I have $5. I don’t have ten. She’s like, it’s $10. I said, well, I have $5. Could I do just one hand? She’s like, it’s $10. I was like, I only have five, though. How much psychic reading can I get for five? And the only thing she even say to me is it’s $10. So you can’t talk down.
Greg: I thought when I said, well, what if it’s just one poem that you’re reading? I thought for sure she was at five. Yeah. Our best. Yeah. All right. Here’s how I would fix this movie. First of all, I think we need to get away from the ocean. Okay? You know, like we learned from jaws that filming on the water is a nightmare, and I just don’t wish that on anybody, especially Kathryn Bigelow.
Greg: So I think we need to get to something like, a little bit more, I don’t know, like, grounded, like street racing. I think we should base this maybe with street racing instead.
Joe: All right. I’m intrigued.
Greg: So let me set the scene for you. Can I set the scene?
Joe: Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: Okay, Joe. Well, in this world that we’re making up right now, there has been a rash of high speed DVD thefts by a crew using precision driving and modified muscle cars.
Joe: I’m in. Okay.
Greg: Intrigued now, I think this team should be led by someone much like bowtie, which is like a Vin Diesel type, let’s say.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: And his sister, Dana Brewster. I think we should digitally de-age them both by 25 years.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: And our story will center around an LAPD cop who needs to go undercover with this racing unit. And I know this seems like a role that Paul Walker would be written for, but he has sadly passed. So I’m going to say we should cast seemingly you who played Shang-Chi as the cop. Do you know that dude. Do you know what I’m talking about.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: That dude is awesome. How come he’s not in every movie? He’s. Yeah, he should be in every movie with David Harbor. Agree. They should be standing next to each other in every scene in the background of every movie, and just pop up every once in a while. I love that dude. So I think seemingly who is in this movie, he’s going to take these people down.
Greg: And by that I mean he’s actually going to, you know, start to respect them and probably join the gang.
Joe: Okay, then I’m in.
Greg: I think this thing has legs.
Joe: Yeah. What are you going to call this movie?
Greg: Jimmy in the time machine? Okay. Dun dun dun dun. Okay, I love it. No notes. No no no no no. Yeah okay. Joe, when you think of Point Break, let me ask you a very important question. What album is this?
Joe: Okay. I again went to my family. I asked my son Milo, who knows everything about music, and I said, I need an album that was well-regarded in his time but doesn’t hold up at all. And he goes, isn’t that every single Aerosmith album? So my answer is every single one of them.
Greg: That’s amazing.
Joe: I nod to Get a Grip, which is the closest one in time to this, which has crazy and some other.
Greg: Just.
Joe: Really interesting songs on.
Greg: It’s oh, wait, wait, did pump come out?
Joe: Pump was like 89. So there’s like right in the middle.
Greg: Okay, okay. Sure.
Joe: Get got a grip because it’s a little.
Greg: More make sense.
Joe: Annoying of an album.
Greg: I think we need to sit down and listen to some Aerosmith records straight through with Milo some time. Yeah, I think he’s going to be surprised by how rock and roll those first couple are, but that’s amazing. So what song do you pick from get a Grip for our Spotify playlist? Great bad movies music.
Joe: I think I have to go with crazy because we have that crazy, amazing. Oh is the third one. There was a train crying and crying. Yeah, that were just like the most. They were the same song over and over again. Yeah, I think crazy is my pick because just to be annoying on that.
Greg: That’s awesome, I love it. I was listening to just like the Greatest Hits of Aerosmith and for some reason I asked myself, I’m doing the dishes and listen to this record. And I asked myself, what are the top three years or eras? I should have seen Aerosmith, and it was kind of like 78, you know, kind of like they’re a couple albums in and then probably like 89, I think after pump came out.
Greg: But I was, I was listening to songs from Get a Grip on this, you know, playlist for the first time I was listening to them all the way through and I was like, this song is horrible, but it would have been amazing in an arena. Like the song was written for like a stadium tour. Yeah. So I asked ChatGPT this question and it said I think 78 or whatever like their second or third album, 89 and then said and you have to see them in 94 on the Get a Grip tour because it was an amazing stadium tour.
Greg: It’s like, thank you. ChatGPT.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely.
Greg: So that was the first time I had ever liked a song. I’d get a grip. Okay. Well I’m going to say I have a little bit more of a generous view of this movie than you do. Yeah, I’m probably overshooting with the quality of album that I’m picking on this one. But I mean, it, I wanted it to be an album that had no follow ups.
Greg: Okay. But many imitators.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: So set a standard. But then, you know, never did anything with it. A classic that can’t be ignored. I call this movie a classic. You probably don’t. Okay. I think it can’t be ignored. You probably kind of do.
Joe: So I would agree with you like in the cultural phenomena. Sure. Point break.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Definitely hold high regard and esteem. So.
Greg: Okay. You don’t have to agree with that. Yeah, but you agree that it’s like that. So I think this movie is The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
Joe: Oh, wow. Based on your criteria, I will. I allow it. That is probably is from a quality standpoint. Definitely out kicking. It’s coverage as they say.
Greg: But but.
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: So we’re just still searching for the next Lauryn Hill. Many have tried. Yeah. Irreplaceable.
Joe: Yeah. She is the quintessential often imitated never duplicated.
Greg: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So that is my answer I’m going to do. You’re just too good to be true. What’s that song. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah I know what you mean. I can’t think of the name of it, but.
Greg: Yeah, is it can’t take my eyes off of you.
Joe: It might be.
Greg: Here’s why I’m picking that. Because. Do you remember in that era of songs when it was on a soundtrack, the singer or a rapper would, like, just blurt out the name of the movie in the beginning? And in the beginning of that song, she goes, conspiracy theory. Because it was on The Conspiracy theory, a movie with Julia Roberts.
Greg: Awesome, and Mel Gibson, directed by Joel Schumacher. I think just the most random movie in history, that is. I also love that era of music where there was just a lot of, and,
Greg: I Joe, it has come down to this. It’s time for us to rate this movie. How do you rate Point Break? Great bad movie, good bad movie. Okay. Bad movie, bad bad movie. Worst case. Awful bad movie.
Joe: I’m gonna stick with my guns on this one. This is an okay bad movie.
Greg: Sure. Yeah.
Joe: As always, I have more affection for it. Talking about it, hearing your love of this and the pieces that are great, but I just. You just can’t scream every in every scene and expect me to to give you a good rating. I’m sorry. I have standards. So I think that Kathryn Bigelow.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Where do you rate this movie?
Greg: I’m right in the line of great and good. If I’m nostalgic and I think of the impact this movie has had, I go, great. If I look at some of the tropes and some of the kind of like tired things from that time where you’re like, I’m glad this isn’t in movies anymore, right? I go, good. So it’s still kind of like the best case scenario of those tired movies.
Greg: So I will be influenced by you this week and say, good, bad movie. I’m on the high end of good bad movie on this one, right? But although the yelling didn’t bother me. Yeah.
Joe: But hey, we did it.
Greg: Absolutely. We had the conversation that needed to have happened about Point Break.
Joe: I know, what is it, 33, 34 years later, you know? Yeah. If you haven’t seen it, talked about this movie, what are you doing with your life? Press pause, go watch the movie, come back and see us right at the end of this.
Greg: So we should have mentioned, as always, spoilers for the Movie Point Breakout.
Joe: Big spoilers. Yeah, if you like slow motion water and action sports shots, this movie has it all for you.
Greg: But listen, Joe and I are like, reconnecting our long lost friendship by watching great bad movies together one episode at a time. You have friends that you have a love of great bad movies with. You need to call that friend, hang out with them and start talking about some great bad movies. And maybe if you think that friend would like this show, recommend it to him.
Greg: Let them know something. There are people just like you out there that are that are watching movies like Point Break and Top Gun Maverick and other movies that have been nominated for Best Picture. In fact.
Joe: I think top ten Mavericks, the only one that we watched and probably only one we will watch that nominated.
Greg: Challenge accepted. Maybe it’s a movie about super smart, mundane jobs. You think they’re just an accountant, but it turns out they’re the most amazing, you know, military person in history. You think they’re just a transporter? Glorified DoorDash?
Joe: Yeah. Or maybe it’s the smartest, you know, shark you’ve ever seen. And that’s you’re in the deep blue sea. So, you know, you know, you don’t know what we’re going to come with next time.
Greg: Oh, we will get to Deep Blue Sea here. You, me. Well, anyways, you can find us at Great Bad movies.com. You can email us Great Bad Movies show at gmail. Let us know what movies you think we should cover. Find us on Instagram. Great bad movies show. Find us on YouTube. Great bad movies show. That’s primarily where we spend our time most places, but most importantly, rate and review our podcast on whatever you’re listening to this show on right now.
Greg: That is the best way you can help this show, other than sharing it with your friends.
Joe: Or sending us $1 million. Either way, you know, kind of plus or minus for you either. But you know.
Greg: I’m going to assume minus. But you know what? Yeah.
Joe: I mean, we’re not going to say no.
Greg: There’s a chance it’s plus yeah.
Joe: We guarantee that we will do a shot of the briefcase full of money and probably with some sort of scene where we buy guns with that money. So, you know, you’re welcome, everyone.
Greg: You know, in movies, when people steal from a bank and there’s like, that ink pack that explodes.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: The dye pack. Is that what it’s called? Yeah. The thing that you send us with money can be all money wrapped in dye packs. That’s fine with us. Yeah, we’ll live with the blue for a while. Yeah.
Joe: We’re not spending this money. We’re just going to.
Greg: Yeah, just sleep on it. Yeah. Just roll around on it and laugh. Yeah. So.
Joe: And be blue. You know.
Greg: I mean, everybody has dreams. Everybody has dreams. Yeah. That happens to be ours. All right. Well. Oh, Joe, I am so sorry, but I just realized what time it is. I have recently found out that I am a blue flame special. Oh, and so I’m going to start a nonprofit for all of the BFFs out there and me to get together and just live life together.
Greg: You know what I mean? Just have community.
Joe: That sounds amazing.
Greg: So I’m going to go.
Joe: Yeah, that sounds good. I’m running late. I’ve got to go pluck the hair off of surfers first.
Greg: I’m sorry. Sorry. Okay, well, that works for me because I just realized I messed up the lunch order. I don’t know what I was thinking. I got one meatball sub and two tuna sandwiches. I mean, so there’s a very good chance I’m gonna get fired. So we’re gonna have to fix the sandwich here and, catch the bank robbers on the next time we go to lunch.
Joe: Yeah, that makes sense. I’ve got to go compare football beach scenes from Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick and Point Break to see which is the best one.
Greg: So that makes sense. And also watch which one has the best song.
Joe: It’s hard not to go with Top Gun the original.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Isn’t that the Kenny Loggins song or.
Greg: Yeah, it’s called playing with the boys. Okay.
Joe: And that’s why you come to this podcast, ladies and gentlemen.
Greg: Play and play it. Let us. What an amazing song. And then it was, a band from Colorado, not Imagine Dragons, the other band that’s ubiquitous. Ryan Tedder is the singer.
Joe: Oh. Went Republic.
Greg: Yeah, it was the One Republic, dude. Yeah. Not a bad song. Yeah. A rip off of another song that I’m forgetting the name of. Yeah, I get my hands. I love that one.
Joe: Oh, yeah. From the from Portugal. The man. That’s what that.
Greg: Portugal. The man. Yeah. It’s a rip off of that song. Yeah, well, this has been great talking about whatever that was. We just talk about.
Joe: You know, songs during montages, during football scenes and movies.
Greg: Obviously. But I have a bunch of interviews with, surfers that I’m going to hire to beat up the members of Red Hot Chili Peppers daily for the rest of their lives. Okay, good. No matter where they are on tour, surfers are going to jump out from the bushes and beat them up.
Joe: Yeah. Perfect. I’m. I’ve got to run. Anyway, I’m. I’m resting my voice for the acting class taught by John C McGinley. It’s called how to yell Every Single Line and Still Get Work.
Greg: So I really think he fought to have the opening credits of this movie to say Platoon’s John Cena. Again, we.
Greg: Okay. Well, that works for me because, you know, up until now, I didn’t realize that not shooting people and then shooting my gun up in the air was an option. So I need to go to apologize to a lot of people that I chose to shoot at that moment. Yeah, that.
Joe: That that tracks.
Greg: The least I could do is say sorry.
Joe: Yeah, probably. It’s a good thing I. I’ve got to go to the hair salon. I’ve got to get my hair feathered.
Greg: Really well, that kind of. So who’s hair was your favorite in this movie?
Joe: Laurie Bettis.
Greg: Yeah. You got to.
Joe: Certain scenes are just ridiculously ridiculous.
Greg: I think she looked great. Yeah.
Joe: Oh, my God, the hair. It’s it’s a little too early 90s feathered hair for me.
Greg: So interesting. And Patrick Swayze, he gets a pass. He gets, a Martin Riggs Lethal weapon hair pass the mullet.
Joe: It’s rough, but, like, just to me, that’s like. Though the feathered hair was such a, moment in time post Aqua Net 80s when everyone just had as big a hair as possible.
Greg: Sure. You know. So. Okay, I don’t remember it being feathered. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.
Joe: I will find you a still and send it to you.
Greg: There’s, You know, surfer hair is pretty awesome. So what? It is pretty cool things to hair. I think.
Joe: There is no salt water in her.
Greg: Hair. No anything. Okay, okay. Okay, well, that works for me. I need to go to a meeting with a coworker of mine, and the only time that worked in our schedule was while we were both jumping out of an airplane. So I’m going to have a skydiving meeting the way they do in this movie.
Joe: That. That makes sense. I’ve got to go talk to, my friend about, the explosive squibs. They seem to be just blowing up all over the place. That’s really distracting. So.
Greg: That’s awesome. All right, well, that works for me. This has been awesome, Joe. Thanks for watching Point break with me. You’re welcome. And I will see you soon. Be you soon.