A young extreme sports fanatic turned-FBI agent infiltrates an extraordinary team of extreme sports athletes he suspects of masterminding a string of unprecedented, sophisticated corporate heists. Deep undercover, and with his life in danger, he strives to prove these athletes are the architects of the mind-boggling crimes that are devastating the world’s financial markets.
Ok, I know what you are going to say and let’s get it out of the way, you guys are right and I was wrong.
As you’ll know by now, I am more than happy to give remakes, reboots, re-imaginings etc a go and will never judge before I have watched – but I have to confess, when I heard they were remaking this iconic piece of cinema – I was wondering how the heck they’d do it justice?
I heard Gerard Butler was down to play Bodhi – I actually thought, although plenty of others didn’t, that it might have worked, then before I knew it, Luke Bracey (who?) was cast as Jonny Utah and Edgar Ramirez was cast as Bodhi – at this point my interest pretty much evaporated.
Let’s dig into the movie then and quite frankly, bar the extreme sports sequences of which there are several and all very well delivered, this was pretty boring.
One, there were no robberies, yes, you see Bodhi and Co dump a load of cash on a small Mexican village from a plane-heist and you see them enter a bank then engage in a shoot-out as they leave, but you don’t see any of the stuff that made the first film so good, no footage of them actually holding up the bank, plus there is no themed get up for the crew, a la ‘the ex-presidents’ – well, actually they use presidential masks, but one of them is Obama and as this was in 2015 and that was the only mask you see, I guess the crew were actually called ‘The Presidents’?!
So why are they doing what they are doing?? Well, they’re carrying out these heists on the instruction of a wealthy backer not really worth mentioning as he isn’t important to the movie and in fact, they are pure adrenaline junkies and are only interested in achieving what is called ‘The Ozaki 8’ – a series of 8 death defying challenges that will allow them to reach ‘nirvana’ – why they couldn’t just be in it for the money I don’t know and this is yet another major departure from the original.
Other issues, let me see, well, Bracey firstly, explains that ‘Utah’ is ‘just a nickname’ – ruin the film right there why don’t you and then goes on to explain that it has a meaning, what a load of s**t and it is in fact so under-whelming, I’ve forgotten what it is, add to this that the crew actually go on to explain what a ‘Point Break’ is, I know, I know!!
Also, if you are wondering if he chases Bodhi and ends up firing his gun in the air – he does, but I won’t even waste my word limit to describe it as I just wish they’d left it out!
Ok, the final gripe (there could be loads more), the CGI, wow it was bad, especially in the last scene – if you actually make it through to the last scene, you’ll know what I mean.
On to the acting, in a word ‘wooden’, Bracey makes Keanu Reeves Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan look like an Oscar-nominee and as for Ray Winstone –well, I just don’t know if he is taking the piss or is really trying (this can be said for many of his performances to be fair).
In this he plays the role of Pappas and is part of the FBI’s UK office as quoted by the sadly more often than not, typecast Delroy Lindo but seems to have that really annoying twang in his accent, I was kinda hoping he’d go all Sexy Beast with it – either way though, he was never going to top Gary Busey!
Ok, I have rambled enough and if this review isn’t enough to put you off watching, then make sure you have a copy of the original handy to wash away the memory of this.