GradyQ

I went into the theater on a lark, cracking wise at the tagline: "He Will Rock You". But sure enough, by the end of the film, I was rocked indeed. Heath Ledger really swung for the fences on this one. I really only have one gripe: no Josh Hartnett. I'm sure he could have played the villain at least as good as the mouth breather they ended up using. To see Heath Ledger and Josh Hartnett sharing the screen would be comparable to DeNiro and Pacino in HEAT, in this filmgoer's humble opinion. Another thing that isn't a gripe, more a curiosity... did anyone else notice how hot Shannyn Sosamon's handmaiden was? They kept building up Sosamon because she was the lead, but then she was always seen with that stunningly beautiful handmaiden who made her look plain and homely in comparison. I found it a bit distracting.

POINT BREAK is a lot of fun, hugely enjoyable and actually well made. Kathryn Bigelow's directs with such energy its easy to overlook POINT BREAK's shortcomings, which are plenty. A group of surfers rob banks to finance their "endless summer", following the waves with the seasons. Enter Special Agent Johnny Utah (Reeves), a man with an unlikely name and a look in his eyes that Lori Petty tells me is a "kamikaze stare" but I thought was just a blank look. He's an ex-college football hero who can pass as a young surfer to infiltrate the group. Utah and his partner, the irrepressible Angelo Pappas (Busey), work to catch the tight knit group of surfers, as Utah takes surfing lessons from Lori Petty to better his chances of "blending in". Of course, the surfer/bank robbers in question end up being Petty's ex-boyfriend, the enigmatic Bodhi (Swayze) and his cohorts. Utah bonds with them and soon begins to buy into Bodhi's surfer mysticism. The best thing about this film is the action. The second best is the questionable casting choices. Reeves' Johnny Utah is constantly being credited with traits that he obviously doesn't have, causing one to wonder who the part might have been written for. Petty sounds like the surfer girl from Jersey. Swayze is utterly hilarious as Bodhi, and why is he always trying to pull some karate in movies? Does he even know any karate? Another topic for another day. Gary Busey is at his Buseyest in this one, post-motorcycle wreck. Also, kudos to any film that works in the line: "I'll see you in the next life." That's a line I like because when you hear it you know these guys aren't planning on seeing each other for a long time. Any movie that has that line in it I generally like.