I have long believed the point of extreme sports is to create the most elaborate and high profile suicide possible. That’s why you bring the camera, something to launch you into the stratosphere and just enough padding to protect against vicious grass stains. People think a “trick,” “stunt,” or “self-mutilation” is unsuccessful if the artist fails to stick the landing. This is a common misconception. The stunt is a failure if the coroner doesn’t get involved. And with that I present today’s film, a quixotic remake to the Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze “classic” Point Break. Note: the “quixotic” part of this Point Break is where you wonder why we needed a remake.
Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey) enjoys sunsets, long walks on the beach and diving head first into cement mixers. While riding dirtbikes with his good buddy, hmmm, did he have a name? Let’s just call him “Deathwish.” Anyhoo, while riding with Deathwish, Johnny cliff jumps onto an elevated mesa with a platform surface area the size of an inner city driveway. Now, while appreciating the cool factor, my big question here is, “How do you get down? You have landed 
on top of what is essentially a very tall flagpole.” Deathwish hits the landing strip and skids over the side to his death. This action pushes Johnny to join the F.B.I. seven years later.
Now, wait, I know what you’re thinking, “That didn’t make sense.” Oh just wait until this film gets started! You see, for some reason known only to the writers of the film, the F.B.I. is suddenly interested in extreme international theft. F.B.I. boss Delroy Lindo, still looking for that signature post-Get Shorty role, presents probational agent Utah with some video of dudes committing crimes like knocking over the 100th floor of a bank half-a-world away and escaping via parachute through the window.
Good thing Johnny’s here. Johnny knows. Johnny explains these fellas are trying to take on the “Ozaki 8,” a series of intense physical challenges in nature. To pay homage to the natural gift of glorious suicide, the thieves must “give back” … whatever that means. Somehow, this is interpreted as hijacking a load of cash and letting it fly over a small Mexican town while skydiving. Wait. Wait. Wait. I haven’t even gotten to the best part – Johnny successfully ID’s the culprits and then … joins them. And they pretty much stop committing crimes altogether and just do the extreme stunts. I don’t even know where to begin here. I really don’t. The F.B.I. is domestic, but this tale doesn’t have a single outdoor shot in U.S. territory … There are only a handful of people in the entire world who can pull off the crime stunts, but the F.B.I. is still baffled. Baffled, I tell you! … Johnny is chasing criminals who manage get away doing things like scaling cliffs ?! You couldn’t just, you know, wait on top of the cliff? Dude survives, dude falls: it’s a win-win. Johnny collects zero evidence. None. No figerprints. No tools of crime. Not even a photograph. But
it’s ok, he’s falling in love, although I can’t decide whether he’s falling for Samsara (Teresa Palmer) or Bodhi (Édgar Ramírez). Difficult to tell, it is.
You just know somebody woke up in the middle of the living room, saw the X-Games on the tube and said, “How do we make a movie around this?” Especially considering the Ozaki 8 stops being about crime. Of course, it could be that Johnny has fingered the wrong fellows. That would explain a bunch. Of course, it also could be that the entire F.B.I. thing is a figment of Johnny’s traumatized imagination. Of course, further it could be that Deathwish never existed at all; Johnny simply killed off his split personality and spends all his time in a mental ward. But, and I’m being serious here, there are some really cool stunts in this ward.
Johnny Utah is the F.B.I. extreme sport guru
Using the biz to fund his wild breakneck voodoo
Pulled a monster stunt he did
Congratulations kid
No one has ever made me long for Reeves, Keanu
Rated PG-13, 114 Minutes
D: Ericson Core
W: Kurt Wimmer
Genre: A little plot. A lot of stunts.
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: X-treme movie watchers, woo!
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: The sane
