Point Break 1991 Cast, Crew and Verdict Against the 2015 Remake

Point Break 1991 cast: who played whom

Point Break (1991) was directed by Kathryn Bigelow from a script by W. Peter Iliff, with a story credit to Rick King. It was produced by Peter Abrams and Robert L. Levy for 20th Century Fox, premiered in Westwood on July 10, 1991 and opened in the United States on July 12, 1991. The film runs 122 minutes, cost $24 million, and took in $83.5 million worldwide, according to Wikipedia. The Point Break 1991 cast is one of the most quoted ensembles in 1990s action: Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey and Lori Petty, with a long supporting bench of future familiar faces.

The plot is simple to the point of being a legend. A gang of bank robbers known as the Ex-Presidents wears rubber masks of Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Richard Nixon and Lyndon B. Johnson during their heists. The FBI suspects the robbers are local surfers, so it sends in Johnny Utah, a former college football star turned young agent, undercover. Utah learns to surf, befriends Bodhi, the charismatic leader of the crew, and gets close to Bodhi's circle, including Tyler, an on-again, off-again love interest. The closer he gets, the harder it is to separate the job from the thrill.

The 2015 remake keeps the names and the basic structure but rebuilds the premise around extreme sports. Luke Bracey plays Utah, a former extreme athlete who joined the FBI after a stunt went wrong and a friend died. Édgar Ramírez plays Bodhi, whose crew follows a list of eight ordeals called the Ozaki 8, meant to honor the forces of nature, while committing heists. Ericson Core directed the film and also shot it, from a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer. It reached U.S. theaters on December 25, 2015, runs 114 minutes, and was made for $105 million.

This page is a head-to-head from Rough Cut Review's Weekend Movie Brawls series. The format is simple: two films with a shared story or theme are graded on music, casting, writing, production and direction, each from A to F. An A is worth 4 points, a B is 3, a C is 2, a D is 1 and an F is zero, and the five grades are averaged. The match-up in this installment pits two pulp-style crime films that the review felt were slightly underappreciated, one of them being the film that made Keanu Reeves an action lead.

The 1991 principal cast

Keanu Reeves plays Johnny Utah, Patrick Swayze plays Bodhi, Gary Busey plays FBI Agent Angelo Pappas, and Lori Petty plays Tyler Ann Endicott. John C. McGinley is FBI Director Ben Harp. James LeGros, John Philbin, Bojesse Christopher, Lee Tergesen and Vincent Klyn play members of Bodhi's circle, among them Roach, Nathaniel, Grommet, Rosie and Lupton Warchild Pittman. Anthony Kiedis appears as Tone, and Tom Sizemore appears uncredited as a DEA agent.

The review's take on the ensemble is blunt. Reeves is, in its reading, totally miscast and great at the same time, because he fits the character type even while seeming delightfully out of place. Swayze, in the review's view, gives his best role: his rebel persona from Dirty Dancing and Road House, a wild-man and good old boy at once, suits a soulful thrill seeker. Petty is praised for a tough beach-girl performance, and Gary Busey is cast as Reeves's partner, Pappas.

The 2015 principal cast

Luke Bracey is Utah and Édgar Ramírez is Bodhi. Ray Winstone plays Pappas, now an FBI agent in London, and Teresa Palmer plays Samsara Dietz, a love interest who becomes a secondary antagonist. Delroy Lindo plays FBI instructor Hall, Matias Varela plays Grommet, Clemens Schick plays Roach, Tobias Santelmann plays Chowder and Max Thieriot plays Jeff. Steve Aoki appears as himself.

The review likes the casting on paper and likes the filmmakers' intent. Both leads look like they could really do what their characters do before the film's visual effects take over. It argues that the effect backfires, because the actors are gritty and seasoned but do not read as actors, and they mumble or flatly recite lines, which leaves no chemistry. Palmer is called just okay, mainly because the film uses her so little, and Winstone is described as collecting a paycheck as a cranky old man.

Point Break 1991 cast and 2015 cast side by side

Credits from Wikipedia's articles on the two films, linked in the sources below.

Behind the camera: the crews of Point Break 1991 and 2015

Casting is only half of the comparison, and the credits behind the camera explain much of the gap. The 1991 film was a Fox studio picture with Bigelow at the helm, Iliff writing, Isham composing and Peterman shooting. Iliff also wrote Varsity Blues and Patriot Games, which the review counts among his only major credits, and it finds that strange given how well paced the Point Break script is. The review calls the story and concept very clever, which is a fair description of a movie about a federal agent who can only pass as a surfer by becoming one.

The Point Break 1991 cast also includes performers who became better known later: Anthony Kiedis, the singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, plays Tone, and Tom Sizemore appears uncredited. The supporting bench, from LeGros and Philbin to Tergesen and Klyn, gives Bodhi's crew the lived-in feel of a real beach scene, which is part of what the remake could not recreate with a sleeker, more international ensemble.

The 2015 film had a bigger machine. Producers Andrew A. Kosove, Broderick Johnson, John Baldecchi, David Valdes, Christopher Taylor and Kurt Wimmer worked through Alcon Entertainment, DMG Entertainment, Erman Productions and Studio Babelsberg. Warner Bros. distributed it in the United States, Concorde Filmverleih in Germany and Austria, the China Film Group in China, and Lionsgate in other international markets, with a China release on December 4, 2015. It lists the United States, Germany and China as its countries of origin. The story credit names Rick King, Iliff and Wimmer.

Core's dual role as director and cinematographer is the film's clearest creative decision, and it is why the review praises the photography and then withholds praise from nearly everything else. Core's earlier directing credit, the Disney sports film Invincible, is the one the review mentions, and it argues that his lack of film-directing experience shows once the stunts need to connect to people.

Point Break 1991 versus 2015: the category-by-category brawl

The brawl begins with music. Mark Isham scored the original, alternating between big brass and heavy drums and electronic, soulful passages, which the review says works because surfing and skydiving are as nerve-wracking and intense as they are beautiful. Early-1990s alternative rock on the soundtrack sometimes busts the eardrums, but the score is solid. For the remake, Tom Holkenborg, known as Junkie XL, scored the film after his work on Mad Max: Fury Road and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The review says his work lands in the middle: big, brash and not memorable, with giant drums on nearly every track. Isham wins by a nose. Grades: C for 1991, D for 2015.

Casting is next, and covered above. The original takes a B-plus for the combination of Swayze's best role, Petty's grit and a Reeves whose miscasting becomes part of the film's charm. The remake takes a C-plus for a cast that looks right and plays flat.

Writing is where the gap opens. The review calls Iliff's script not perfect but beautifully paced, at times close to the buddy formula of Shane Black films turned on its head, and credits it with a clever concept and one of the great bank-robber gangs in movie history. It loves the idea that Utah comes so close to the edge that he ditches his badge, because there will never be a case as thrilling as chasing Bodhi, and it likes how Utah, Tyler and Bodhi are tied together. Wimmer's script for the remake reads, in the review's words, like a list of stunts to check off. It gestures at respect for nature and giving back to the poor, but those ideas are more present in dialogue than in action. Samsara's death does not land because the film gives her about three minutes with Utah before shooting her. Grades: B-minus against D-minus.

Production splits the other way, but only on one point. The original is a big Fox production with gorgeous Southern California locations, photographed by Donald Peterman, who also shot Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Flashdance, and the review likes that its stunts are real and not run through computer-generated effects. It scores a B. The remake's saving grace is its cinematography. The surfing, skydiving and base-jumping are beautifully shot, and Core was both director and cinematographer, which the review ties to the gritty look he brought to Payback. Wikipedia lists filming in Tahiti at Teahupo'o for the surfing, Walenstadt in Switzerland for wingsuit flying, the Aiguille de la Grande Sassière in Italy for snowboarding and Angel Falls in Venezuela for free climbing. The review gives the remake a C-plus because the rest of the production feels like a rough draft.

Direction closes the brawl. Bigelow, who later won the Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker, is described as controlling everything beautifully and delivering a breathless action film that never lets up once it gets going. The review puts the film beside Near Dark and Strange Days as favorites of hers and gives it a B-plus. Core makes the film look good, and that is about all, in the review's view. His limited directing experience shows in robotic action scenes, rough editing, and poor computer-generated and green-screen work, and the review gives the remake a D-plus.

The final score

The tally is not close. Point Break (1991) totals 14 points, an average of 2.8. Point Break (2015) totals 7 points, an average of 1.4. The review says nobody should be surprised, because a remake carries double the burden: fans of the original are already skeptical, and a film that does not earn its own place loses on both counts.

Point Break scorecard

The five categories, scored from A to F and converted to points (A 4, B 3, C 2, D 1, F 0).

• Music: 1991 C (2 points), 2015 D (1 point)
• Cast: 1991 B-plus (3 points), 2015 C-plus (2 points)
• Writing: 1991 B-minus (3 points), 2015 D-minus (1 point)
• Production: 1991 B (3 points), 2015 C-plus (2 points)
• Direction: 1991 B-plus (3 points), 2015 D-plus (1 point)
• Total: 1991 14 points, average 2.8; 2015 7 points, average 1.4

Verdict: how the two Point Break films hold up

The review's verdict is that the 1991 film is far superior, and the record of reception since then supports its direction. On Wikipedia, the 1991 Point Break holds a 69% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 81 reviews and a Metacritic score of 60, and it is described as a cult film. The 2015 remake holds 11% from 115 reviews and a Metacritic score of 34 from 21 critics, with a CinemaScore of B from audiences. At the box office the remake grossed $133.7 million worldwide, $28.8 million of it in North America, against its $105 million budget.

The remake is not without defenders. It has real photography, and the Ozaki 8 idea, an eco-minded list of ordeals, gives the gang a purpose the original never needed. But the review's point holds: the original is about people, and the remake is about stunts. You care about Utah and Bodhi in 1991 because their friendship feels like a trap that closes slowly. In 2015 the camera is more interested in the mountain than in the men.

If you only watch one, the choice is simple. Watch the original for Swayze's best performance, a Reeves who is still discovering what he can do, and a Bigelow action picture that never wastes a scene. Watch the remake only if you want to see the sports photography on a big screen, and treat it as a visual demo.

Searches for the Point Break 1991 cast tend to end with the same two names, Reeves and Swayze, and that pairing is the reason the film endures. Swayze's Bodhi is a villain you root for, and Reeves's Utah is a hero who wants to be caught. A cast with that tension does not need a list of stunts to hold attention, and the review makes that its central argument against the remake.

A last note on method. A letter-grade system flatters nobody and compresses a lot of nuance, but it does force a decision in every category. The 2015 film never rises above a C-plus, which tells you the review sees it as competent in two areas and weak in the other three. The 1991 film never drops below a C, and its four B-range grades in casting, writing, production and direction show an even, confident piece of craft. Averages of 2.8 and 1.4 are a margin of exactly two to one. Music is the only category where the original itself is merely average, and the remake trails it there too. The tie-break rule, a playoff at a later date, never came into play, which says plenty about how lopsided the match-up turned out.

Sources

• Point Break (1991 film), Wikipedia — Cast, credits, release, budget, box office and reception of the original.
• Point Break (2015 film), Wikipedia — Cast, credits, locations, budget, box office and reception of the remake.