[CRITICAL] POINT BREAK (2016)

Directed by Ericson Core (Invincible), best known for being the director of photography of Fast and Furious (2001) and Payback (1999), the remake of POINT BREAK, failing to be a good movie, play on the wave of a philosophy of pro-ecological exciting since it is full of annoyances. Let’s try to quickly go through all the defects of the film to take care of what we are interested in, or at least, what can be interesting in this kind of film, that is to say, its ideology a bit dumb. To know, how images in advertising can (still) pass a speech environmental persuasive ?

From the first scene of the film, we know that this POINT BREAK 2.0 is missed. Two reasons for this : the actor Luke Bracey and the screenwriter Kurt Wimmer, who was responsible, all the same, At the end of the night (2008), for justice (2009), Salt (2010) and another remake slaughtered, Total Recall : a programmed Memory (2012). For his part, Luke Bracey, a sort of mix between the voices of Chris Hemsworth and the head of Paul Walker, it is obviously that the second, or even third choice of a production that has seen Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Chris Pine, Chris Pratt and Nicholas Hoult decline successively the role – probably by reading the scenario of Wimmer. Because if there are real actors in POINT BREAK (Edgar Ramirez and Ray Winstone), they do not have large-thing to do as the film is designed as an advertisement for the equipment of extreme sports, where the stunt men deserve to have their name in the credits next to those of the actors.

If some of these sequences work, and this, in spite of a sensory experience rather poor (Core is also director of photography on the film), they are essentially at the beautiful landscape through which they pass : Salto Angel, the summit of the Jungfrau, off Teahupoo, the peninsula of Tahiti, the cave of the Swallows… And, of course, we repeat, the talents of these stuntmen. That the staging of Core , both its practice of the ellipse leaves sometimes dreamy : while the FBI agent Utah (Bracey) infiltrates the gang of Robin hood (Ramirez and his gang), and gaining their trust after only two runs, Utah is taking a disproportionate response when he learned the death of one of the members of the group. Surjouée by the actor, this disproportionate response comes in (honestly) fifteen minutes after their meeting. Knowing that there is a five-minute descent (sic)… Core was therefore taken ten minutes – an evening aboard a yacht, and a descent by base jump – to build this friendship, male bonding, and (obviously) deeply moving. A priori, these two characters have not spoken during those ten minutes.

“Under his movement thriller running on adrenaline and testosterone, the film speaks especially of ecology.”

Obviously, the film does not seek to build relationships too deep between the characters, including between our two heroes (Utah and Bohdi). So what can it really tell us ? Under his movement thriller fuelled with adrenaline and testosterone, the film speaks especially ecology (the word is out). While the images of landscapes are more than sufficient to themselves, the characters, well, mostly Bohdi, engage in monologues philosophical around the opposition between man and nature. Speech green grounds, but which in the mouth of Bohdi has something of a fanatical, religious, or even almost deadly. Fascinated by a pseudo guru, Ono Ozaki, to whom we owe the famous ” 8 Ozaki , “a type of physical tests where we must master the forces of nature, Bohdi wants absolutely to take on this challenge, open door to nirvana, and to an ecstatic state. But, he points out himself, this is in no way a personal desire and therefore of the earth. It is another thing. For him, try and move his ideals (such as this poor Ozaki, killed by a Norwegian whaling !) is to date ineffective. Now, it is time to act, that is to say, to act (under the guise of spirituality) and “give back” what we took to our dear Mother Nature. So there is the idea of being one with nature, to find a balance, more friendly to the… Bohdi is referred to as line, direction to take, choices to follow, and always be in agreement with itself. In short, it enrhume nicely for Utah to make him change his camp, and see it pass on the side of “good” huggers who détroussent banks and other multinationals. That’s about all for the story and its issues.

But while the discourse of ecological intensifies our days, at least more so than in 1991 at the output of the original, the film tries to put images to this “écosophie” (or ecology deep, écophénoménologie), ultimately much more suited to today’s audience. When Bodhi practice extreme sports, this is not so much to steal from the rich and give to the poor (that is to legitimize its human madness, pattern o how much more exciting I hear you say), than to go to the deepest part of this ultimate experience, extra-sensory. What then enables him to regain a sense of morality and ethics with respect to its relationship to the world. These jumps in the empty, runs to the side of the mountain, everything that constitutes his relationship to nature, arouse in him the essence of his humanity, both primitive and sublime. If this may seem ridiculous, a bit utopian, even illusory, it is that today, nature and its landscapes, are considered primarily in terms of their utility value, technical. That is to say, the iconicity of their image (a beautiful light and a beautiful backdrop). In other words, a good spot to make a base jump or climbing, all filmed with a GoPro.

In the end, the discourse of the film may not be credible, as he defends his message green with the paradigm that destroys it – a representation of arbitrary nature that is based on the existence of conventions socialized, an advertising image uplifting. It is the cat that bites the tail. In comparison, Avatar (2009) illustrated much better this connection with nature, creating a physical link, this famous bound between the Na avi and the planet Pandora. Because, if in POINT BREAK, Bohdi prefers to commit suicide in a big wave rather than be arrested, it is that its existentialism, in the midst of pessimism, has come to have because of it (the planet is condemned if we follow his reasoning). Conversely, the (re)birth of Jake Sully on Pandora, whose ideology seems to us to be much more humanistic, appears as an invitation to live, because it has really “touched” and referred to the beauty of this planet, and end provide literally it.

Antoine Gaudé

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