An FBI agent, who is sent after a group of eco-avengers who commit crimes in order to restore the natural balance of the planet, gets drawn to their way of life
The emulation of Hans Zimmer’s musical motif for Christopher Nolan’s movies such as The Dark Knight and Inception has become ubiquitous to the extent that it has now become a Hollywood action movie cliché. Besides having a mindnumbingly dull impact on the minds of the audience it also signals one thing – the Dark Knightisation of a genre or a trope, a po-mo riff on something superficially fun.
The musical piece comes in the later portions of Point Break, that takes the material of the campy fun original and gives it a dead-serious treatment. The story is about a group of extreme adventurer-rebels who create havoc by pulling off impossible heist like robberies. An FBI agent is sent after them. He goes undercover to blend in with them but is drawn to their way of life. While the 1991 film, directed by Hurt Locker maker Katheryn Bigelow that starred Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves, was entirely a surfboard adventure, set in the seas of Los Angeles, the new film goes bigger. While it begins with the rare sea wave phenomenon in France, it goes to the snow-capped Alps and the epic waterfalls of Venezuela among other places.
The new film’s biggest undoing is a weak performance by its lead actor (Luke Bracey). Utah is an interesting character, an FBI agent with a baggage. A nature lover, he is a former extreme adventure enthusiast himself who lost his friend while biking in the Grand Canyon. The moral ambiguity that he faces after he spiritually connects with Bodhi and his group isn’t explored well. Bracey has no charisma either. In some scenes his dialogues are so flat, his expression so straight that he looks straight out of a bad, generic action movie. The fact that the FBI is almost made to look laughable, suffering from cardboard characterisations, doesn’t help it either.
In comparison, it’s Bodhi(Adgar Ramirez) and his team of eco avengers--who do their bit of Robin Hoodery by showering diamonds on a Mumbai slum and dollars in Mexico-- that really are (or should have felt like) the protagonists. Bodhi gets lesser screen time than Utah but has a much more powerful presence. The film could have gone deeper into Bodhi’s inner strength and quietness – all he is given is expository, pop-philosophical dialogues. If the film succeeds in underlining its spiritual and poetic connotations, it’s in the stunning action set pieces – not CGI generated but real stunts in real locations. From the surfing men riding on giant waves of he azure seas of France to that of men gliding across the sweeping slopes of Alps, navigating its unpredictable landscape are exhilarating.
But it’s the characters and events that connect these that fail Point Break.
