Lady pointing gun stock photo3/20/2024 ![]() ![]() But you can also sense that it is for the moments like this-the sight of these two beautiful people caked in blood and confetti-that the earlier, clumsier versions exist. When Angela Bassett and Ralph Fiennes finally kiss at the end of “Strange Days,” you know that you’re watching a version of an ending you’ve watched a million times. She could do all of these, while most of her peers specialized in one, because she never condescended to genre clichés she accepted them as tools and put them in the service of pure spectacle, which is all they were ever there for. She could do action thrillers (“Blue Steel”), she could do horror (“Near Dark”), she could do science fiction (“Strange Days”). ![]() The critical and commercial disaster of “K-19: The Widowmaker,” the solemn, award-heavy success of “The Hurt Locker,” the purse-lipped “fascist or feminist?” debate surrounding “ Zero Dark Thirty,” the cowed verisimilitude of “ Detroit”-all of this has clouded the truth that, for about ten years, Kathryn Bigelow was one of America’s best genre filmmakers. Not “Point Break,” which wears its weirdness so cockily that its cousins start to seem like the real oddballs. It sounds weird, but then all action thrillers-all genre movies-are weird, albeit in a way that we spend our lives learning to ignore. agent and goes undercover with a gang of surfers-led by Swayze’s character, a lion-maned fellow by the name of Bodhi, as in Bodhisattva-who dress up as ex-Presidents and rob banks. (“ Phantom Thread”: she feeds him poisonous mushrooms, but he digs it.) That said, the crucial thing to know about “Point Break” is that Keanu Reeves plays a star quarterback for the Ohio State Buckeyes named Johnny Utah who becomes an F.B.I. ![]() Also law enforcement and skydiving.ĭescribe any film too briskly and you risk turning it into a screwball comedy. It was released in 1991, the year of “Nevermind” and Desert Storm, though you could also think of it as the era when everyone in Hollywood movies looked slightly wet-appropriate here, since “Point Break” is about surfing. The masked man is Patrick Swayze, the cop is Keanu Reeves, the woman who has sicced one on the other is the director Kathryn Bigelow, and the thing that binds them all together is “Point Break.” Those of us who love the film, which is showing in a new restoration, at Metrograph, talk about it in much the same way that others talk about “Showgirls”-i.e., as what used to be called a cult movie, before it became clear that there are only cults of varying sizes. Don’t all bad guys dream of being children again? We can’t see his expression, but Reagan’s face is grinning, and I’d like to imagine that the face underneath is, too. In about thirty seconds, a cop will tackle him, prompting a long foot chase, but for now he waves his weapon like a kid with a sparkler on New Year’s Eve. He is torching his getaway vehicle and taking his time the scene isn’t shot in slow motion, but I always remember it that way. For instance: a man dressed in a tuxedo and a Ronald Reagan mask, using a gasoline pump as a flamethrower. There are certain images that slither past good taste and politics and sink their teeth straight into the subconscious. ![]()
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