The film world rolled their eyes in collective disgust yesterday after it was announced that Warner Bros. was financing and/or distributing a remake of Kathryn Bigelow's Point Break. That 1991 cult-favorite of course starred Keanu Reeves as FBI Agent Johnny Utah, who goes undercover as a surfer to catch a gang of bank robbers, led by Patrick Swayze, who pull heists to finance their endless summer. The film is cheesy to the point of being high opera, but I always admired how straight-faced it was, and how seriously it took its violence. The picture takes awhile to achieve a body count, but when it does, its jolting. In this film, the loss of any life, be it an innocent bank guard or one of the robbers, was tragic and cause for mourning. And the finale was refreshingly grim, acknowledging that a violent crime story doesn't have a happy ending just because the bad guys all died.
