STILL SICK (and overanalyzing Point Break)

Today was not the hooky day I wanted it to be. I still didn't feel well. What a drag. Dude.

So what did I do? What anyone who is sick and has some movie channels would do: I watched Point Break. Anyone who doesn't have movie channels would watch Bob Ross. Watching Bob Ross when you're sick is close to achieving nirvana. Watching Point Break when you're sick makes you question how your life got to this point (break).


The Wikipedia article for Point Break suggests the possibility of a sequel (with VH1's I Love the 90's as the source). Since the movie ends with Bodhi vanishing into his perfect wave without emerging, the audience is supposedly left wondering if he dies. This was a question I never asked myself. I always assumed he died. He has no need to go on. With his extreme lifestyle, his chances of surviving until the next 50 year storm are not very good. Even if he did, he probably would not be fit to even attempt to ride such a wave as a 70-80 year old man (Johnny Utah and Bodhi meeting up again on the beach as old fogies would be kind of neat, though). Also, he recently lost everyone he cares about. He really has nothing to live for except this wave. To him this is the ultimate experience and he seems like a guy who would want to die doing what he loved (ie go out on top: catch a wave and you are sitting on top of the world). Also, he would face near-certain incarceration if he was to live, but obviously a sequel would occur with the assumption that he is not caught (Point Break 2: Behind Bars doesn't sound very exciting).

Regardless, there would be nothing to add with a sequel. I could only see it as being pretty much the same movie: Johnny Utah trying to catch Bodhi. Of course, there is the problem that Utah threw his badge into the ocean at the end. That really only leaves one feasible plot for the sequel: Utah is your everyday guy who starts noticing a string of robberies very reminiscent of the Ex-Presidents' thefts and comes to realize Bodhi survived and is behind it. It then would just become the cat-and-mouse sort of movie the first one was and not worth a new movie in my opinion. You could say Bodhi finds Utah and convinces Utah to join him in sticking it to the man with a crime spree, but I don't think Utah's character lends itself to being corrupted. He did let Bodhi get away twice: once firing his gun into the air and yelling "aaaaaaahhh!!" and finally to let him have his last wave. Both weren't necessarily cases of lawlessness, though. In the first instance he just didn't want to kill Bodhi, and in the other he figured letting him go out in that storm would... kill him. Utah does show he is willing to kill as he shoots a number of others in the film, but he does see Bodhi as a friend and would rather give him a chance in jail than kill him. I suppose you could also count the time he has a gun to Bodhi's head while skydiving, but I believe he still needs Bodhi to save Tyler at that point, so love got in the way. Utah does go to great lengths to try to catch Bodhi, though, showing his strong desire to uphold the law. Even if something happened in his life to crumble his law-abiding spirit, it would be too disconnected from the first movie and I think an original movie would make more sense than a sequel of that sort. What's the use of digging up old characters if you are going to change their values right at the start?

What I do think might be an interesting movie would be a prequel to Point Break. What made Bodhi the way he was? When the other Ex-Presidents want to cash in their clams and paddle into the sunset, he reminds them that the money doesn’t matter. They are in it to rage against the machine and it doesn’t matter the outcome (gotta live your life). Where did he get this attitude? He must have an interesting background to get such a viewpoint and to become such an uncompromisingly dangerous character. Also, Johnny Utah was a quarterback at The Ohio State University and was a star in the Rose Bowl. He busts his knee and decides to go into law and become an FBI agent. While not quite as interesting as Bodhi's character, there does seem to be a bit of a story to tell there. Regardless, I think the main problem with a prequel would be an ending that would be a suitable transition into the first one.

In the end, Point Break stands on its own as a pretty complete story. The characters are fairly interesting and the action is packed in tight. Unfortunately, Keanu Reeves.

Note: I actually don't mind KR in this role too much, but that seems the best way to end this.