Ten Statements About....POINT BREAK (1991)

"I know what you're thinking...in about a decade, some guy
named Diesel and another guy named Walker will have
the same confrontation back in LA."

"It’s not tragic if you die doing what you love."

1) Why do people get the idea that Keanu Reeves should play former quarterbacks?  The man’s Canadian; he played hockey, not football.  There are other sports he can be retired from.  Stop it.

2) You can easily see why Kathryn Bigelow was attracted to this script.  The movie is chock-a-block with surfing, skydiving and other activities that freely allows her to indulge in her perchance for painterly images.  Which is fortunate....

3) ...because seen without the sheen of early 90‘s nostalgia, this script by Rick King and W. Peter Iliff is rock stupid.  Shorn of its visual style, the story hits every cliche, the dialogue is exposition-tastic and the characterization struggles to be two-dimensional.  It’s always one step away from being a laughably bad movie.

4) If you want to see how handheld cameras can be used effectively for an exciting, clearly shot action scene, take a look at Bigelow’s shooting of the footchase between Patrick Swayze’s Reagan-masked Bodhi and Reeves’ Johnny Utah.  This is how you do it, Paul Greengrass.

"So, umm, in a second I should shoot away from my
suspect...right?  RIGHT?"

5) I do find it intriguing how the film sets up Bodhi and Gary Busey’s Angelo as two extremes of father figures for Johnny--and yet the expected roles of who Good Dad and Bad Dad is are inverted.  It does help that Reeves exhibits chemistry with both Swayze and Busey.

6) I am not surprised that Lori Petty is cast as romantic lead Taylor; she certainly has the same angular looks as previous Bigelow female leads as Jenny Wright and Jamie Lee Curtis.  She still provides a rather interesting contrast to Reeves as far as her acting style.  Her rather brassy presentation (which ironically makes her come off more ‘city boy’ than the laid back Reeves) stands out against all the characters around her.

7) Boy, has John C. McGinley’s Harp stepped straight out of Cliche Casting.  The script doesn’t even bother giving Harp a second emotion; he’s just Antagonistic Superior Guy whose purpose is to yell at and belittle Johnny.  Even in the first act where McGinley acts as Exposition Drop Machine, he seems ready to start spraying spittle at a moment’s notice.

"huh...that don't look like a hockey helmet."

8) I defy anyone to explain what the sky diving scene at the beginning of Act Three is doing where it is.  The one narrative beat that’s essential to the plot is handled at the end of the sequence that could be presented sans several minutes of elevated atmosphere porn.

9)  Boy, does The Fast and The Furious need to send this movie a present every Father’s Day....right down to the bad guy being allowed to do the thing he loves by our hero instead of being dragged in cuffs back to face the music.

10) You know, Anthony Kiedis may not have much to do in this film, but as an actor he makes....well, a pretty decent musician,  Maybe he should ask Flea for some acting advice.

Overall...a cliched, stupid action movie elevated (highly elevated) by the keen visual style of Bigelow.  If you can turn off your brain and ignore all the narrative silliness, you can enjoy this immensely.

Ten Statements About....LETHAL WEAPON (1987)

You know what's more depressing than the holidays?  A
chistmas tree holdup....

"Do you wanna hear that sometimes I think about eatin' a bullet? Huh? Well, I do! I even got a special bullet for the occasion with a hollow point, look! Make sure it blows the back of my goddamned head out and do the job right! Every single day I wake up and I think of a reason not to do it! Every single day! You know why I don't do it? This is gonna make you laugh! You know why I don't do it? The job! Doin' the job! Now that's the reason!"

1) The thing that will always floor me about this film is how the script by Shane Black spends close to an hour focused entirely on Murtaugh and Riggs with minimal lip service to the actual plot. We get so deep into so many aspects of these two men's lives that we are thoroughly and absolutely invested in them and their partnership even before the second half puts them through Hell.

2) Of course, the film wouldn't work without the chemistry between Gibson and Glover, and the way these two men make the pairing work not only convinces us of the veracity of their characters, but makes definitive character choices that makes their growing trust in each other thoroughly believable.

3) ..and it's very fortunate that Gibson and Glover are capable of doing this, because the actual plot is...well, it's not exactly very good. The villains are for the lion's share ciphers, as if Black felt their presence intruded on what he really wanted to write about, namely the relationship between the two leads.

To think we used to believe he was only acting crazy...

4) Thankfully, one of the villains is Mr. Joshua, given vivid life by Gary Busey. He's pretty much the sidekick to Mitchell Ryan's General...but so distinctive is Joshua that he becomes the de facto main bad guy--and ends up getting into the climatic fight scene with Riggs.

5) While this film is usually noted for helping put Gibson over into the top tier of stardom, it should be acknowledged that for every moment he nails, there's a moment where he loses control of his accent or fails to sell some of the nuances Black's script demands of him.

6) I find it fascinating how much of the film's running time takes place during rain; even the final fight takes place while a broken fire hydrant is stimulating a torrential rain storm. It really does give the film a distinctive feel from other L.A. set action films, although I'm not sure if the rain is a jokey commentary on the film's Christmas setting (it being so warm that L.A. can't provide us with snow), or a reference to Riggs being some sort of inheritor of the hardboiled detective.

7) I've never been able to accept the whole 'kidnapping Rianne Murtaugh' aspect, and not just because Traci Wolf is a thoroughly awful actress...the kidnapping never shakes the impression that it's there to just occupy a slice of time to jumpstart the crime plot that Black and director Richard Donner has spent so much time ignoring.

To think we used to believe he was only acting crazy...

8) It also doesn't help that said crime plot is sort of rushed through over the course of the film's last forty minutes or so--and about seven minutes of so are devoted to that final confrontation with Joshua on Murtaugh's lawn. I suspect that if the script sprinkled a little more screentime to the General and his plot, the film would have flowed so much better.

9) I absolutely love the fact that the Murtaugh family actually looks and feels like a family. Even down to the fact that the two younger kids seems to share a resemblance to Glover and Darlene Love.

10) And speaking of things I love...I love the fact that the final fight between Riggs and Joshua is choreographed as what is for all extent and purposes a mixed martial arts fight...and Donner is perfectly happy to let both the beauty and the brutality of the fight play out. Hell, Donner even stages it so that the key development in Riggs' character arc fully expresses itself in how he resolves the fight.

Overall...a wonderfully cool film--although I love it more as a story about two police detectives learning to trust and respect each other and not as an action film. The Shane Black script is smart, smartly interpreted by smart actors. Plus, it counts as a Christmas movie, only with bullets.