Point Break (1991)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
In Los Angeles, a gang of bank robbers who call themselves The Ex-Presidents commit their crimes while wearing masks of Reagan, Carter, Nixon and Johnson. Believing that the members of the gang could be surfers, the F.B.I. sends young agent Johnny Utah to the beach undercover to mix with the surfers and gather information.
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9 films that influenced Point Break
What critics say influenced Point Break
Possibly inspired by the tense robbery sequence that begins the excellent thriller Best Seller (1987), where all the culprits wear Richard Nixon masks, the Ex-Presidents wear masks of four former U.S. presidents during robberies, Reagan, Nixon, Carter and LBJ.
Bigelow will forever have my heart as the women responsible for one of my foundational films as a younger asshole, Near Dark , whose band of nomadic Midwestern vampires led me to her Two-Lane Blacktop homage The Loveless (the debut vehicle for Willem Dafoe); her fascinating phallus-play Blue Steel; and then forward into the years-ahead-of-its-time Strange Days .
By the time Illif has ripped off the James Bond "Moonraker" scene that has a character jumping from a plane without a chute and the final moment from the original "Dirty Harry," the audience is likely to have given up completely on the story.
In terms of Hollywood history, Bigelow's film is the perfect document of its time, featuring the renegade-cop-goes-west movie that may have begun with Bullitt and Dirty Harry, but did not really hit a stride until the late-'80s/early-'90s switch to L.A.—Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Speed, and their sequels—with a nod to movies like Reeves's true masterwork, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, that thought that being young meant being high in California.
The executive producer of ''Point Break'' is James Cameron, who directed ''Aliens'' and ''Terminator'' and ''Terminator 2.''
This is, of course, an incredibly dickheaded thing to say, but after borrowing most of his Aliens cast for Near Dark , Bigelow--with Cameron aboard as executive producer--cribs the symbiosis between hero and quarry, shifting back and forth from prey to pursuer in the same quicksilver way as the simultaneously-shooting Terminator 2. It's meant as a compliment.
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Besides being Bigelow's directorial debut, Near Dark is also her most satisfying film, largely because it has fewer of the ludicrous plot contrivances that mar Point Break, Blue Steel and Strange Days.
She's made one hypnotic vampire Western (Near Dark) and one sleek if ludicrous feminist cop thriller (Blue Steel).
He may have given her a few pointers or two, but the new film is too much like Bigelow's ''Blue Steel'' and ''Near Dark,'' her second film as a director.
Thanks to director Kathryn Bigelow (Near Dark, Strange Days), Point Break is an irrepressible action movie.
Bigelow, a female director who already proved she could direct a horror film, 1987's Near Dark, and an action-thriller, 1990's Blue Steel, with as much edge as any male, again shows great skill in staging energetic and imaginative action sequences, some which are very exciting.
But there's no question that director Kathryn Bigelow ("Near Dark," "Blue Steel") is a stylish artist with an understanding of how much gorgeous lighting and color can mean to a film's texture.
In terms of Hollywood history, Bigelow's film is the perfect document of its time, featuring the renegade-cop-goes-west movie that may have begun with Bullitt and Dirty Harry, but did not really hit a stride until the late-'80s/early-'90s switch to L.A.—Beverly Hills Cop, Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, Speed, and their sequels—with a nod to movies like Reeves's true masterwork, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, that thought that being young meant being high in California.
She's made one hypnotic vampire Western (Near Dark) and one sleek if ludicrous feminist cop thriller (Blue Steel).
The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow, whose last film, ''Blue Steel,'' was a silly mixture of reason and outrage.
"Point Break" concludes with the same orgy of violence and nonsense that eventually caught up with "Blue Steel."
But there's no question that director Kathryn Bigelow ("Near Dark," "Blue Steel") is a stylish artist with an understanding of how much gorgeous lighting and color can mean to a film's texture.
She made " Blue Steel ," with Jamie Lee Curtis as a rookie cop, and now here is Keanu Reeves in essentially the same role - a kid determined to prove himself, up against the twisted intelligence of a megalomaniac.
Bigelow will forever have my heart as the women responsible for one of my foundational films as a younger asshole, Near Dark , whose band of nomadic Midwestern vampires led me to her Two-Lane Blacktop homage The Loveless (the debut vehicle for Willem Dafoe); her fascinating phallus-play Blue Steel; and then forward into the years-ahead-of-its-time Strange Days .
It's co-directed and co-written by Kathryn Bigelow ("Near Dark"/"Point Break"/"K-19: The Widowmaker") and Monty Montgomery (an actor who became a Hollywood producer of "Wild at Heart").
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This movie embodies the machismo of the decade the way “Point Break” did the 90s.