Point Break may not have gotten the love it deserved when it first hit theaters in 1991, but it has become a cult favorite and regarded as a landmark film in the filmographies of its two stars, Keanu Reeves and the late Patrick Swayze. To be frank, I think remaking this film would be a dreadful mistake because it’s one of the few movies that has an inseparable connection with the decade in which it was released. You can’t top Gary Busey as a slightly unhinged cop. You can’t top Keanu punting a dog with his foot. You can’t recreate the scene of Anthony Kiedis as a douchebag surfer threatening Keanu until Swayze swoops in to save the day. Point Break is a classic because it is a love letter to heist flicks as well as surfing and skydiving. The end carries more emotional weight than The Fast and the Furious, which loosely tried to mimic the film’s premise but didn’t have the charm to follow through.
Naturally, you think of two things when someone mentions Point Break–surfing and Patrick Swayze knocking over banks disguised as Ronald Reagan (the latter is probably the most iconic visual motif of the film). I wanted this design to reflect PB‘s noir-ish undertones, but I didn’t want to forget those radical waves which gave the film it’s defining subtext. I don’t have the skillset necessary for surfing or infiltrating a gang of surfing bank robbers, but watching the Swayze and Keanu tackle the ocean one minute and chasing each other through backyards the next is a fulfilling experience no matter what.
