Keanu Watch 2009: Point Break

Gun play, surfing, Gary Busey, skydiving, and a killer chase scene. Sounds like the formula for a perfect Keanu Reeves 90’s action movie, unfortunately it also sounds like the perfect formula for a mediocre 90’s Keanu action movie. The question really lies in weather or not the movie’s got soul.

The movie starts with Keanu playing a former college football star that has just started working for a bank robbery unit in the FBI. He is partnered up with the department’s oldest, and arguably craziest, officer played by Gary Busey. The two are tracking down a group of bank robbers known as the “Ex-Presidents.”

Busey suspects that the bank robbers where actually a group of surfers and so Keanu goes undercover as surfer to try and find the criminals. Long story short: Keanu befriends the leader of the surf crew, Patrick Swayze, then Swayze and Keanu grow close and Swayze teaches him his Zen surfer ways.

90’s action flicks typically hold up the way we’d like them to, but Point Break manages to do it pretty well. All of the action scenes are still pretty solid. The acting, with the exception of Keanu, is all pretty good. This is the second time I’ve seen a movie with pre-accident Gary Busey and I have to admit I was incredibly impressed. Swayze was incredible…and Keanu may seem like he’s doing a good job but his character is just a cop going under cover as Ted from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and that isn’t much of a stretch for Mr. Reeves.

The plot might be a little bit ridiculous but Point Break remains an incredible action movie. It’s fun, energetic and has some soul. If you’ve never seen it and want to see Keanu and Swayze shooting guns and jumping out of planes then this is a must see.