Point Break

Director Kathryn Bigelow is one of the new-style action wizards who’ve never quite mastered the nuts and bolts of telling a story. Read full review

Point Break has its areas of excitement, but on too many occasions the movie just lies there -- even when it does, however, the film still manages to look and sound good. Read full review

A lot of what Bigelow puts up on the screen bypasses the brain altogether, plugging directly into our viscera, our gut. The surfing scenes in particular are majestically powerful, even awe-inspiring. Bigelow's picture is a feast for the eyes, but we watch movies with more than our eyes. She seduces us, then asks us to be bimbos. Read full review

Bigelow stages the film's action sequences with a brutal efficiency (they almost redeem the movie), but she can't keep the increasingly silly script in check. Read full review

For an hour or so, Bigelow (Near Dark, Blue Steel) gets by on that great eye of hers. But about halfway, Point Break breaks down. The plot, which has been unimpressive but not irritating, becomes maddeningly implausible. And the performances, which had been generally engaging, lose their edge. Read full review

Point Break points up inherent limitations in the "star" rating system. Its purely visceral material (surf sounds, skydiving stunt work, a tough indoor shootout midway through) are first-rate. As for the tangibles that matter even more (script, acting, directorial control, credible relationships between characters), Break defies belief. Dramatically, it rivals the lowest surf yet this year. [12 July 1991, p.4D]

Point Break has some eye-catching visuals in its frenetic action sequences, but even the slow-mo surfing gets tedious. It's like being trapped in a soft-drink commercial. [12 July 1991, p.G5]

When the action sequences move into the sky-diving stuff, they give you a real rush.... Otherwise, though, Point Break is all wet. Too bad, because you always get the sense in a Kathryn Bigelow outing ("Near Dark," "Blue Steel") that she's trying to push a genre into new places. [12 July 1991, p.54]

A hare-brained wild ride through big surf and bad vibes, Point Break acts like a huge, nasty wave, picking up viewers for a few major thrills but ultimately grinding them into the sand via overkill and absurdity. Read full review

It's a movie that's almost all style, all technique. It doesn't seem to be inhabited by people, thoughts or feelings, but by great coruscating patterns of light crashing over and over us, repeatedly--almost, but not quite, drowning out a constant buzz of cliches. Read full review

Whatever raffish charm Reeves and Swayze exhibit is lost in the superficial gloss of Iliff's screenplay and Bigelow's direction. [12 July 1991, p.7]