Film review: Point Break – extreme-sports remake of surf-heist classic misses the point

Nobody is craving meatball sandwiches in the new Point Break, a tragically misconceived remake of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 surf/heist thriller. Ditching the cult favourite’s hammy acting, conflicted romance, high-octane cops-and-robbers action and extraordinarily goofy lines, this extreme-sports makeover by director and cinematographer Ericson Core is a technically accomplished movie that struggles mightily to replicate the original’s guilty pleasure.

Australian actor Luke Bracey plays young FBI agent Johnny Utah, the character which once saw Keanu Reeves break his affectless mould, fire a gun at the sky and shout, “Ahhh”. No such hilarity here. In place of the undercover cop who clumsily learned surfing and got a new nomadic lifestyle to infiltrate a gang of beach-bum criminals, the new film gloomily offers us a guilt-ridden extreme athlete who lost a friend off a cliff at a motocross racing event years ago.

If that sounds conceited, wait until you meet the misshapen villains. While Patrick Swayze’s philosophical ringleader Bodhi left an impression with his surfing obsession and playful bankrobbing tactics, the character here (played by Venezuelan actor Édgar Ramírez) is chasing such eco-nonsense as the mythical “Osaki Eight”, which was established by a now-deceased spiritual guru and constitutes eight extreme sports missions to “honour the forces of nature” and “achieve nirvana”.

But Bodhi and pals’ globetrotting pursuit for enlightenment doesn’t end there. In an effort “to disrupt international financial markets”, they’re also pulling a Robin Hood during some of these stunts, redistributing American wealth to the poor around the world in the process. In an early scene, two gigantic blocks of banknotes are made to rain on a Mexican village in a plane heist-turned skydiving mission. Puzzlingly enough, the robbers don’t appear to have kept a dollar.