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RIP Patrick Swayze

Text Tors Arnold
Posted 14:05 GMT on September 18, 2009 Comments (10)
RIP Patrick Swayze

"Yo Johnny! I see you in the next life!"

Someone's face disintegrated into a sneer when I mentioned the Patrick Swayze surf movie, Point Break, last week.

I'd been laying out my case for Kathryn Bigelow's latest film, The Hurt Locker, and her talent for action filmmaking. Fatally misreading the intellectual landscape, I condensed my argument to: "Y'know, she made Point Break.."

Cue The Sneer – and a dark hole to China opening up beneath me as I dug myself deeper with every word: "Undercover cops – surfing! Bank robbers – surfing! Keanu Reeves as Johnny Utah, Patrick Swayze as Bodhi – surfing! What's not to like?!"

But this was just before Swayze passed away and there was no swell of posthumous affection to tap into.

I degenerated into a burbling, inarticulate monkey for the rest of the evening. My bomb-proof depiction of Swayze cutting tubes and pulling bank jobs had faltered, childhood ideals had been burned, my confidence shot.

Truth is, I find it hard to defend my love of Point Break on any intelligent, rational level. One critic described it as "an exercise in stylish lunkheadedness: gorgeous but dumb as a post." And I'd probably agree.

But it came in the days of VHS tapes and village-store rentals. Older sport-action titles moulding in the racks were Karate Kid, BMX Bandits, Rocky sequels and Days of Thunder. There were no YouTube clips on surfing and snowboarding, no deluge of sponsor-made movies, little in the way of visual stimulus beyond the yawn of football and cricket. Unless you liked Dirty Dancing of course.

But I wasn't into the "Nobody puts Baby in a corner" line, or the pottery-wheel sex of Ghost for that matter, so Swayze came to me in the form of Bodhi: searching, surfing, heisting, jumping out of planes and ultimately choosing death for the sake of personal freedom.

Yeah, the script might've been hokum but Bigelow's action was raw, her casting perfect and the lure of the ocean never lost. Reeves flinging his badge into the sea like a surf-obsessed Dirty Harry and Swayze sinking his rail in slow mo with a liquid soundtrack was far cooler and more visceral than Ralph Macchio's dorky crane kick or Sly lumbering up some steps to a 70s anthem.

Forget your brain, you love Point Break with your retinas, your gut and your long gone, pre-digital, surf-starved innocence.

But good luck trying to find a copy at Blockbusters, everyone's got the damn thing out for hire.

RIP Patrick Swayze.

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Comments (10)

  • You can't put him in a cage, dude. So long.

    Martha - September 18, 2009, 14:14 / Report abuse
  • fear causes hesitation and hesitation causes your worst nightmares to come true. gritty & comeplling filmaking. best movie of all time. rip bodhi.

    josh - September 20, 2009, 10:30 / Report abuse
  • This film was responsbile for so many braindead "yeahhhh duuuude' sterotypes of surfers, Kathryn Bigelow should be thoroughly ashamed of herself.

    Johnny fucking Utah, oh c'mon please!

    cheri - September 21, 2009, 16:41 / Report abuse
  • My favourite bit in Point break is where Bodhi beats up on the Red hot chilli peppers, need more of that

    adhesif - September 25, 2009, 09:47 / Report abuse
  • love that film, for all the cheese but mostly the action and mysto zen speak - required viewing for testerone-filled males from my generation
    rest in peace PS

    macdad - September 30, 2009, 09:10 / Report abuse
  • adhesif, my favourite scene

    Kid in surf shop: "It's cool man, we get a lot of old guys learnign to surf

    Jaahneeee Yoooooootaaaahhhh: "I'm 25."

    Kid: "That's what I'm saying it's never too late."

    That cracked me up until I actually turned 25.

    Jon - September 30, 2009, 14:37 / Report abuse
  • It was on TV the other night, almost admired it for its cheesiness.

    That douchebag kid is probably pushing 40 by now though

    Ed Andrews - September 30, 2009, 14:55 / Report abuse
  • "That douchebag kid is probably pushing 40 by now though"

    Nope. he died of a drug overdose when he was 24. Don't ask me how I know that.

    Jon - October 1, 2009, 11:30 / Report abuse
  • What's his name?

    Ed Andrews - October 1, 2009, 12:16 / Report abuse
  • Chris Pettiet. He was also in "Don't tell mom the babysitter's dead." One of my hobbies is finding out what child stars from the 80s are doing now.

    Yes I know. I'm as embarassed as you are.

    Jon - October 1, 2009, 12:22 / Report abuse

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