believe it to be one of the funniest films ever made, on par with the comedies of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, the Marx Brothers, Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, Blake Edwards, Woody Allen, Harold Ramis, John Hughes, and Wes Anderson. It’s a distinguished member of a movie subgenre that I refer to as the “accidental comedy.”
Accidental comedy is self-explanatory: It occurs when non-come-dies wind up being accidentally hysterical. Action-dramas like Point Break lend themselves well to this phenomenon. Top Gun (1986; Tony Scott, director) is another fine example of accidental comedy.
Point Break. Twentieth Century Fox, 1991. James Cameron, executive producer. Peter Abrams and Robert L. Levy, producers. Rick King and Michael Rauch, co-producers. Donald Peterman, cinematographer. Howard E. Smith and Bert Lovitt, editors. Peter Jamison, production designer. Pamela Marcotte, art director. Linda Spheeris, set decorator. W. Peter Iliff, screenwriter. Based on a story by W. Peter Iliff and Rick King. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Rated R.
synopsis:
Keanu Reeves stars as Johnny Utah, a rookie FBI agent working undercover to bring down a team of bohemian bank robbers. Patrick Swayze plays Bodhi (short for Bodhisattva), the charismatic leader of the elusive bandits, a self-professed adrenaline junkie who spends most of his free time engaged in a wide variety of dangerous activities, including (but not limited to) extreme surfing and skydiving. Spouting Zen-like maritime philosophy with the swaggering charm of a California stoner, Bodhi quickly establishes a complicated bond with Special Agent Utah, leading him into a world and way of life that are more dangerous and alluring than the virtuous young lawman had ever dreamt possible.
Here are a few of Bodhi’s most memorable lines in Point Break:
“If you want the ultimate, you’ve gotta be willing to pay the ultimate price. It’s not tragic to die doing what you love.”
“Johnny has his own demons. Don’t you, Johnny?”
“Just feel what the wave is doing. Then accept its energy, get in synch, and charge with it.”
“Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.”
“We can exist on a different plane. We can make our own rules. Why be a servant to the law, when you can be its master?”
“This was never about the money for us. It was about us against the system—that system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something. To those dead souls inching along the freeways in their metal coffins, we show them that the human spirit is still alive.”
“Life sure has a sick sense of humor, doesn’t it?”
I was pretty sure life itself was an accidental comedy.
Back when I was in film school, I had decided that I would one day like to become the first man to direct an intentional accidental comedy. My plan was to write a psychological action-adventure along the lines of Point Break, something unconsciously vapid and stunningly self-serious, something numb to its own rubber heart. I even had a title in mind.
I wanted to call it The Grandeur of Delusions.
delusions of grandeur n.
A delusion (common in paranoia) that you are much greater and more powerful and influential than you really are.
Playa del Carmen was a good move. It was nice to be someplace warm, nice to be in the company of friends. It was like summer camp, with booze. It was a reunion in paradise. I felt rejuvenated for the first time in months. I felt alive. My spirits were high.
One afternoon while walking around town, I even went so far as to arrange for A.B., myself, and the rest of the groomsmen to go skydiving on the day of the wedding. I did it on impulse, convinced that it would be an appropriate thing to do on the morning of one’s nuptials and a good way for me to spend some of my money.
It could therefore be argued that I equated marriage with spending lots of money and plummeting through the earth’s atmosphere at terminal velocity.
terminal velocity n.
The constant maximum velocity reached by a body falling through the atmosphere under the attraction of gravity.
The magnitude of terminal velocity depends upon the weight of the falling body. Heavy objects tend to fall faster than lighter objects, as air resistance is directly proportional to the plummeting body’s velocity squared.
A.B. was a small guy. He weighed about 145 pounds.
I weighed 175.
A typical skydiver plummets through the earth’s atmosphere at a rate of about 120 miles per hour.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the highest speed ever reached by a plummeting skydiver was 325.67 miles per hour. The record was set by Frenchman Michael Brooke at the Millennium Speed Skydiving Competition over Gap, France, on September 19, 1999.
parachute n.
1 An apparatus used to retard free fall from an aircraft, consisting of a light, usually hemispherical canopy attached by cords to a harness and worn or stored folded until deployed in descent.
2 Any of various similar unpowered devices that are used for retarding free-speeding or free-falling motion.
Another interesting fact: Shortly after I arranged for A.B. and his groomsmen to go skydiving, I learned that Jenny and her bridesmaids had arranged to go scuba diving that very same morning. While the groom and his groomsmen would be ten thousand feet above sea level, preparing to plummet through the earth’s atmosphere at terminal velocity, Jenny and her bridesmaids would be fifty feet under, submerged in the crystalline waters just off of Isla Mujeres.
There were no passenger seats on the aircraft. There were no tray tables and no upright positions. There were no stewardesses and no adornments—just a cockpit chair, a throttle, and some gadgets. The cabin was spare and empty, and nobody was talking.
The pilot was a large, unruly Mexican man with a large, unruly mustache. He appeared totally confident in the functioning of the aircraft. He was dressed casually in a T-shirt and shorts. His T-shirt read ¿SUPERVIVENCIA? ¡NO PROBLEMA! Above those words, there was a cartoon drawing of a smiling shark.
I did not know what Supervivencia meant. I found this bothersome.
I was seated on the floor of the aircraft, without a seat belt. My knees were up against my chest, and I was hugging them tightly. A.B. was a few feet away, in the back of the aircraft. He was hugging his knees too.
A.B. and I had elected to jump first. The other three groomsmenwere on the beach below. They were standing in sand, watching the aircraft ascend, waiting their turn in quiet agony. All three had agreed to go skydiving with varying amounts of reluctance. They were doing it because A.B.
