Directed by Kathryn Bigelow with James Cameron as the Executive Producer
This is a cops’n'robbers film set in Los Angeles. Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), a footballing jock with brains enough to become a lawyer, has just graduated from the main FBI academy and asks to be posted to LA. He joins the Robbery Squad and gets paired with Angelo Pappas (Gary Busey), an unconvincing Greek if that’s what he is meant to be.
The two are pushed together by the squad boss Ben Hart (John C McGinley) and their ongoing run-ins are a theme throughout the movie. Pappas is a 22-year veteran of the FBI and isn’t happy about HAVING to babysit a wet behind the ears new partner. The squad have a major crime problem. A gang, calling themselves the Ex-Presidents because of the rubber masks they wear, HAVING been robbing banks for the past few years and the cops have not been able to do anything much about it.
Pappas has a theory that they are a bunch of surfers as they only hit the banks when the surf’s up in the LA area but no-one seems to want to listen until Utah comes along. Eager to please in his first real assignment Utah goes undercover to learn to become a surfer in the hope of getting information about the gang. He gets Tyler Endicott (Lori Petty) to teach him to surf after feeding her a false story about his interest in surfing. Through Tyler he gets to meet Bohdi (Patrick Swayze) who is a committed surfer who loves to live life on the edge. Utah starts hanging out with Bodhi and his group, allowing the film to SHOW a little of the surfing life. There are plenty of bare-chested guys, guys in wet suits, babes in bikinis, babes in wetsuits, etc, as you would expect for a movie set at the beach. The surfing scenes are well done and allow the sound system to get a real workout. The bigger the wave, the bigger the sound.
But back to the movie. Bodhi is quite the philosopher and attempts to make Utah understand that surfing is all about how you get your mind in tune with what the wave is doing. Utah finally catches on and becomes a committed surfer. The boys try out skydiving and Utah gets a rush out of that too, an important scene setter for later on. But is he getting any closer to the bank robbers? Not at first, as he focuses in on the wrong GROUP of dudes. He calls in the other cops and there is a fearsome gunfight at their house ending with dead people but no bank robbers. Watch for the woman in the shower who jumps out to tackle the cops- she really must have loved her boyfriend!
Utah and Pappas nearly catch the gang in the act but after a fabulous car and footchase the gang gets away. Utah has the chance to shoot one of the gang but just can’t quite do it and Pappas gives him a lecture about the need to fire straight when the time comes. Eventually Utah gets found out and his developing relationship with Tyler is put at risk. Bodhi forces him to join the gang for one last heist by kidnapping Tyler but things go wrong when the gang get into a gunfight at the bank.
Eventually the remnants of the gang get to the airport where the getaway plane is waiting. But Utah and Pappas turn up to try to stop them. Pappas gets killed and Utah is forced on to the plane. They fly down toward Mexico where Bodhi and the last gang member pull on the chutes and dive out. Utah doesn’t have a chute, but, hey, that doesn’t matter. He dives out anyway and freefalls to get grab hold of Bodhi. Somehow they survive and Tyler turns up with the kidnapper and is released into the arms of Utah. The fact that they are in a desert miles from anywhere doesn’t seem to faze either of them, nor the fact that Bodhi and his offsider get away.
But Utah finally catches up with Bodhi at Australia’s own Bells Beach, HAVING tracked him around the South Pacific. The end scene has waves that appear way too enormous, even if it was supposed to be in the middle on a once in fifty year storm. There are a couple of nice twists to finish the movie off so I won’t tell you everything.
The story is reasonable and the actors are OK without being great. The surfing scenes are good but I suspect there are many films devoted to surfing that give better footage. The skydiving looks pretty real, especially when Swayze dives out of the plane at the end - he looks the camera in the eye before backward somersaulting out. He can have that on his own. Now whether Reeves actually dives out without a chute I leave you to work out. The cops get the bad guys in the end so right beats might yet again. Overall it is a movie that HAVING watched once will probably not be on my ongoing must watch list. Plausible to a point (hoho) but never in the Academy Award Best Screenplay category.

THE EXTRAS

There isn’t much joy here. It is limited to sound selection (two alternatives), the Trailer (not much in it) and Scene Selection. That’s pretty basic compared to some other offerings and doesn’t offer a great incentive to go out and get a newer version if you have one already.

CONCLUSION

Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), a footballing jock with brains enough to become a lawyer, has just graduated from the main FBI academy and asks to be posted to LA. Pappas is a 22-year veteran of the FBI and isn’t happy about HAVING to babysit a wet behind the ears new partner. A gang, calling themselves the Ex-Presidents HAVING been robbing banks for the past few years and the cops have not been able to do anything much about it. Pappas has a theory that they are a bunch of surfers as they only hit the banks when the surf’s up in the LA area, but no-one seems to want to listen until Utah comes along.