Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break is a must see classic especially if you have a penchant for surfing, guns and early ’90s tight t-shirts, dude. Within the first 5 minutes a masked criminal holding up a bank looks at his watch to proclaim “little hand says, it’s time to rock and roll”, this is old-school action cinema at it’s best.

Keanu Reeves plays Johnny Utah in his first action hero outing. His mission, to bust The Ex-Presidents, a gang of thrill seeking bank robbers by going undercover and infiltrating their clique. The leader of said gang is Patrick Swayze’s Bhodi who brings an idealistic innocence to the film whilst avoiding the pitfall of falling into self parody of the beach-philosopher character. Special mention must go to Gary Busey who plays the gravelly cynical partner to Johnny Utah, a stereotype as old as Hollywood itself. The role of Angelo Pappas is played with off-the-wall aplomb by Busey, who adds many fine insulting lines to temper Reeves’ and Swayze’s testosterone fuelled antics, “Listen you snot-nose little shit, I was takin’ shrapnel in Khe Sanh when you were crappin’ in your hands and rubbin’ it on your face.” For example. The film begins with the rise of brooding synths and strings from accomplished composer Mark Isham. This is combined with a visually effective series of edits of crashing waves to give a hint to the spiritual tone of the film from the get-go. However, like the film itself any indication of spirituality quickly gives way to a maximum velocity, crashing spectacle. The film’s tagline “100% adrenaline” although cliched is probably only a few percent from the truth. Isham has crafted a score that not only complements it’s parent film, but elevates it beyond the egregious silliness which pertains to most ’90s Hollywood action cinema.If the film needs a saving grace, it must be the skydiving scene. It is not hyperbole to say this is both a cinematic tour de force and an orchestral masterpiece. Check it out in high quality, here. This is the scene in which the confusion of trust and betrayal between the bank robber and his FBI pursuer comes to a head while plummeting to earth after jumping from a “perfectly good airplane”. Although Isham’s musical signature is present throughout the film, this is where it truly comes to the fore (see track 16 – Skydive). The film has inherent and self-evident weaknesses (mainly the failure to have the audience believe in an enlightenment through extreme sports). However, there are some sublimely crafted action sequences which become almost abstract at times, the exceptional score goes some way to help lead the viewer down this vein.Although made in 1991, the film score did not find a release until 2008 when La-La Land (a company specialising in score releases) took it upon themselves to allow this fine piece to be heard. This edition was limited to 2,000 units and features 65 minutes of score with liner notes by Dan Goldwasser incorporating comments from both Bigelow and Isham. It is now out of print.