Point Break (1991)

Point Break (1991)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Lori Petty, Gary Busey, John C. McGinley, James LeGros

Along with Michael Manns’ Heat (1995), Point Break is one of the greatest heist/action films of the 90’s. I mean, of course there were excellent action films like Speed (1994), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and The Last Boy Scout (1991) to mention but a few, but there’s something special about Point Break that sets it apart from all other action films from that decade. It has a certain magic to it, it has soul.  The upcoming remake made me want to revisit the original, to remind myself of its awesomeness, which I doubt the remake, directed by a guy called Ericson Core will be able to top. Why did Point Break set the bar so high? What exactly made this one such a memorable action film?

On Point Break, we meet Johnny Utah; an ex-quarterback turned FBI agent who is trying to gain experience in the field by attempting to capture a gang of thugs called ‘The Ex-Presidents’. These Ex-Presidents have never been caught and so, in order to make a name for himself, Johnny Utah takes it upon himself to bust them. The police suspect that these thugs are a gang of local surfers , so Special Agent Utah goes undercover and becomes one of them. Problem is he soon discovers these surfer dudes are actually cool people; when the time comes, will he have what it takes to take them down?

Point Break was the film that turned Keanu Reeves into a fully fledged action star. After this one he did Speed (1994) and voila! From there on in he became a bonafide action star; he’s never looked back. Still as I type this he’s making action films! Before Point Break Keanu was all about looking dumb and saying “whoa” but after the double whammy of Point Break and Speed, he transformed into an ass kicking, killing machine. Some of you younger readers out there might have always known Keanu Reeves as an action star, but for those of us who knew him from his Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) days know what a shock to the system it was to see Keanu change his image that way. It was like a coming of age thing, now he was no longer a stupid teenager, now he was a “man”.  

What works so well about this movie is its spiritual side, spearheaded by Patrick Swayze in the role of Bohdi, a surfer/spiritualist who’s an anti-hero of sorts. Sure he and his crew of ‘Ex-Presidents’ rob banks, but Bohdi also preaches a very positive life philosophy. He wants to truly live his life, he doesn’t want to be a drone, he wants to squeeze as much as he can out of life. He’s an adrenalin junky, so he steals banks in order to have the money to skydive and surf the biggest waves on the planet. His crew doesn’t kill, they get their money and they are out. So this is where the conundrum comes in because agent Utah infiltrates Bodhi’s circle of thugs, and finds them to be for lack of a better word, awesome. These guys are the kind of guys you want to hang around and party with. So does he turn them in or help them? Kathryn Bigelow and crew really managed to carve out a crew of ambiguous characters. Are they good or are they evil? We’re never really sure, which makes the film that much more interesting. Will agent Utah end up becoming one of them?  

Speaking of the films spiritual side, Point Break has a certain magic to it that not a lot of films manage to acquire. Bodhi’s life philosophy doesn’t come off as phony; he’s the real deal, a real human being. The surfing side of the film portrays a connection with nature, a fascination with the beauty of it all. There’s this scene that I love, in which Johnny Utah is learning to surf and his out in the ocean, catching waves as the sun is setting and he’s all excited. As the spray of the ocean surf hits him he says “I can’t describe what I’m feeling” and you believe it when he says it, the visuals, the music and the emotions are palpable and believable. The film expertly captures that moment when you feel one with nature, when you connect with it and realize that cars, buildings and cement are crap next to the beauty of nature. This is what really makes the film special for me. Kathryn Bigelow directed this one, showing her trademark panache behind the camera. There’s this chase sequence that’s just amazing. Utah runs through a bunch of suburban houses while chasing one of the Ex Presidents, it’s an awesome scene that was shot with her trademark long takes. Awesome stuff. As an action film, it does not disappoint.

There’s a Point Break remake on the horizon, as I write this it hasn’t been released yet. But it was directed by a total unknown, starring equally unknown actors, so I don’t know what to expect from it. How exactly do they plan on surpassing Bigelow’s film? Will they manage to capture that magic? I seriously doubt it. Did they cast good actors in the roles? Who knows, but Patrick Swayze, Keanu, Lori Petty and Gary Busey really bring it on this one. They are part of what makes Point Break run without a hitch. So yeah, what we got here my friends is a great action film, and a great film all around. Check this one out for a taste of one of the greatest action/heist flicks of the 90’s.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Solarbabies (1986)

Title: Solarbabies (1986)

Director: Alan Johnson

Cast: Richard Jordan, Jami Gertz, Jason Patric, Lukas Haas, James LeGros

Review:

Solarbabies is one of the few post apocalyptic movies made specifically for kids. The only other one that I can really think of is City of Ember (2008), but correct me If I’m wrong here. Because Solarbabies was aimed at kids, it's a bit sillier than your typical post apocalyptic film. This silliness can also be attributed to the fact that Solarbabies comes straight out of the eighties, where movies were sillier, and yeah, for lack of a better word 'cornier'. Some of these eighties films really make you wonder how they were ever greenlit, but that’s precisely why I love 80’s stuff; they had the guts to be really cuh-razy!  How nuts is this movie? Well, just the fact that it’s a sci-fi film produced by Mel Brooks makes it zany enough in my book; and it’s not even a comedy! Well, at least not intentionally so. This is a film I used to watch a lot back when I was a kid; but even with my nostalgia goggles on, I couldn’t get passed the fact that this wasn’t a very good movie.

Solarbabies tells the story of a group of kids who live in this Nazi-like orphanage in the middle of a post apocalyptic dessert wasteland. This orphanage exists solely for creating soldiers for ‘The Protectorate’. In this place, kids are indoctrinated in the ways of submission and violence. They are allowed to roller-skate in certain designated areas while huge television screens play government films that tell them what to think and how to behave. They tell them things like “Behavior determines existence. Stick with us, learn to serve The Order and you’ll achieve a decent life-grid” In other words, freedom for these kids is out of the question; but is there something else out there in the post apocalyptic wasteland for them? At the same time, the Nazi like government has control over every drop of water on the planet. When will water be free for everyone? One day, a magical glowing sphere called ‘Bohdi’ falls from the skies and befriends the kids. The magical sphere is alive! It performs miracles! And it likes to play Rollerball! Will ‘Bohdi’ help these kids escape the oppression?

Solarbabies is like a who’s who of 80’s teen idols. We get the always beautiful Jami Gertz who once again  works next Jason Patric’s who does his first performance in a film on this one. Jamie Gertz and Jason Patric apparently got along so well that they later collaborated again on The Lost Boys (1988), one o the most recognized vampire films of the 80’s. Their characters fall in love in both movies, which leads us to believe their might have been something else going on behind cameras? We also get James LeGros’s first performance ever, I remember him for his participation in films like Phantasm II (1988) and Near Dark (1987) and speaking of Near Dark, actor Adrian Pasdar who plays the character of ‘Darstar’ on Solarbabies also appeared in Near Dark, which by the way is another great vampire film from the 80’s. Lukas Haas was the child actor of the moment at the time, he had already worked with Harrison Ford on the critically acclaimed film Witness (1985). And interestingly enough, Solarbabies would mark Lukas Haas second foray into post apocalyptic films, his first one being the highly dramatic television film Testament (1983), where he acted along side Kevin Costner. So I think it’s safe to say that Solarbabies is filled with what were the ‘it’ kids in Hollywood at the time. Some of them would go on to have great careers and appear in great films, others would disappear into obscurity.

The film has many faults going against it, most of which have to do with logic. Here’s one for you, the kids live in a Nazi like concentration camp, which is protected by armed cops and cars and watchtowers and all that, but when the time comes to escape, the kids simply waltz right out of the place, no fuss, no problems. Nobody even tries to stop them; they simply roller-skate their way out of the place. They leave the place screaming “We’re free! We did it! Yay!” Hey kids, newsflash: all you had to do was roller-skate out of there, apparently you were never really prisoners to begin with. And that’s another thing, in this world, every single place has a flat surface for them to skate in, even the open dessert! First their mission is to escape The Protectorate, but then by the end of the film their mission becomes going right back to the place they first ran away from! And they waltz right back in again, without any weapons or anything! These kids skate into a Nazi like concentration camp with only hockey sticks in hands! Nothing more! What else is up with this movie?

The film borrows heavily from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1986) and Dune (1984), but mostly from Dune. Let’s see, characters live in a dessert like planet, where water is a precious commodity. We have a group of people who live out in the open dessert called the Eco-Warriors, protectors of water and freedom…damn, this sounds a lot like the Fremen from Dune! Heck, there is this one scene that was ripped off directly from Dune in which a character puts his hand on a device that apparently burns the skin off of his hand, but then he realizes it never really happened, it was all in his mind. It was all his own fears playing with him; same as that test they perform on Paul Atreides on David Lynch’s Dune. There is a town on this film called ‘Tire Town’ which looks and feels a heck of a lot like ‘Barter Town’ from Beyond Thunderdome, plus there's the similarity of having kids survive alone in the wasteland, just like the crazy kids from Thunderdome. And then there’s the evil dictator controlling the land, which is kind of like a staple in most post apocalyptic films. Tank Girl (1995) for example has the same exact premise of an evil Nazi like government controlling all the left over water in a dessert like planet. 

  

But the thing I hated the most about this movie is that it functions in the same way as the Chronicles of Narnia films work: they are a metaphor for believing in Baby Jesus and Christianity in general. That’s right, this movie is all about Christianity, and any movie that propagates the idea of religion goes down a couple of notches in my book. Let’s see. The kids are oppressed, but a magical being comes down from the heavens to help them! It performs miracles, cures decease, makes it rain inside of a room, for all intents and purposes the magical sphere on this movie is Jesus. Sometimes the sphere is not with them, but “they can feel it”, the overall idea being that Bohdi (the magical alien sphere) is always with them and will always be with them. The magic of the ball unites them, they are always ultra happy whenever the ball is with them. One moment in the film has Jason Patric’s character (daftly enough also named Jason) talk to Bohdi telling it that he doesn’t know what it is, but he wants to believe. Characters have these questions about Bohdi, in the same way that people question the existence of God. In the end, to me both Bohdi and Jesus are the same thing: imaginary beings performing miracles that can only come to life through the magic of fiction. Be it a book, or a movie, these miracles never happen in real life.

The Power of Bohdi Unites Them!

In the end, Solarbabies in a mess of a movie with a bunch of disparate ideas that are never really followed through completely; for example, take those Eco-Warriors, why didn’t they go against the system instead of letting all these kids do it by themselves? Could it be that it would cost too much money to present the idea of an army? This group of Warriors we only meet briefly then they disappear from the film entirely. Same with another group of warriors that live out in the dessert. They are presented, and eliminated in the blink of an eye. So we have a movie that’s all over the place in terms of story and plot, it goes from one place to the next without any natural flow. We jump from one plot point to the next with childish enthusiasm “Let’s go! Let’s do it! Yay!” This film simply throws logic out the window. Ultimately, even though I enjoyed watching this one as a child, I ended up not enjoying it so much as an adult because it has so many faults going for it. But then again, this film was directed by a choreographer, a guy named Alan Johnson. Apparently Johnson convinced his pal Mel Brooks to fund the film; Johnson had directed Brook’s To Be Or Not To Be (1983), so they already had a professional relationship. By the way To Be Or Not To Be is the only other film in Johnsons repertoire. In my eyes Johnson is a great choreographer, but not a great director which is probably why he’s never directed again. Or maybe he’s never directed again because because Solarbabies was such a huge flop, take your pick. Solarbabies cost about 8 million to make, but only made 1.5 million back; sad indeed. Still, I think kids would enjoy this film, I know I did when I was about 10. I’d also recommend it to all those Christian parents out there who want to help their kids get used to the idea of a magical imaginary being that’s always looking out for you in life. My kids will be watching Mad Max Beyond Thundedome instead (1985).

Rating: 2 1/2 out of 5