Seeking Adrenaline Friend

Okay, so something happened.

While deciding what to watch the other night, it came to my attention that Susan had not seen "Point Break". This was a cause for some concern on my part. Some people in "Hollywood" use a phrase to indicate that a production is coming together with a solid vision, "we're all making the same movie." Essentially, all the pieces fit the whole and serve the key idea of the story. That our producer had not seen one of the seminal films of the 90s and possibly the single greatest Patrick Swayze-Keanu Reeves collaboration, meant a key piece of filmmaking DNA was absent in her person. I mean, how could she even begin to understand where Kennyboy came from if she had never seen Gary Busey punch John C. McGinley?(If you know of this event occurring in a different film, please let me know immediately)

Having prechambered the film on Netflix Instant Watch, I immediately fired up 120 minutes of thrill-seeking ecstasy. Yes, it's a bankrobber surfer movie and Keanu's character arc basically consists of him being able to summon enough adrenaline to beat Swayze at each new challenge, but there are some smart choices that separate this movie from most action fluff. Setting the two sides of the same coin story around their thrill-seeking testosterdome and having Keanu's choice to bust Bodhi be not about purely breaking the law, but crossing a personal code wherein ego caused friends to be injured makes things interesting. It's not "Five Easy Pieces" but I think even that bit of character subtlety amidst the action has been burnished off of most recent Hollywood productions.

Susan had issues with the end. Being 'tough on crime' she thought Bodhi should be denied his chance to go out in the waves-that was the point of punishment. I maintained that yes, that was the right choice for her perhaps, but that Keanu's character would not necessarily agree. Protagonists need not make the decisions we might but should make decisions appropriate to their situation and personality to be realistic and our empathy latches on to those parts of them with which we can identify. This did not satisfy her, so I suggested that perhaps she needed to spend more time staring into the eye of the tiger. Immediately, she made this post on craigslist:

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22f Seeking Adrenaline Friend - Seattle

I just saw Point Break. I have no friends like they are friends. Will you be my adrenaline friend?


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Amazing.

PS: Not having seen the film in many years, I was astonished hen Keanu went to fight Swayze at the end. All I could think was, "What is he doing? Swayze is just going to Roadhouse him. Right in the neck." And he does. Only through trickery does Keanu overcome the galaxy's greatest bouncer.