Trivia / Point Break (1991)

• Actor-Shared Background: Johnny Utah became a FBI agent after a knee injury ended his football career. In Real Life, Keanu Reeves was once an aspiring hockey player who suffered a knee injury and went on to become an actor.
• Cast the Expert: Bojesse Christopher (Grommet) and John Philbin (Nathaniel) were pro surfers, who acted on the side.
• Cast the Runner-Up: Patrick Swayze originally auditioned for the part of Johnny Utah before eventually landing the role of Bodhi.
• The Cast Showoff: Patrick Swayze was an accomplished skydiver and took part in the big skydiving scene. He made 55 jumps in total.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Spain the movie was called "Le Llaman Bodhi", it means "They Call Him Bodhi".
  • In Brazil, the title is "Caçadores de Emoção", "Thrill Seekers".
• Converted Fanboy: After managing to learn to surf for the filming, Keanu Reeves took a liking to surfing, which has since become a personal hobby for him.
• Deleted Role: Elizabeth Berkley had a small scene in the movie, but it was cut out.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Lori Petty underwent serious surfing training with former world-class professional surfer Dennis Jarvis on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, just two months before filming began.
• Hey, It's That Place!: The beach spot where the football game is played at the beginning of the film is the same spot used for the soccer game in The Karate Kid (1984).
• Missing Trailer Scene: Two scenes from the movie that were deleted from the final cut but were shown in the theatrical trailer are:
  • Bodhi and Utah are in Bodhi's truck. Utah is shooting with a gun on the left side. Bodhi says, "This is gonna be a great day, Johnny!"
  • Utah meets Harp at his office with his surfboard. Harp is angry and says, "You are not here to pick up girls, Utah." Utah replies, "The original term is 'babes', sir!"
• No Stunt Double: For many of the surfing scenes, Patrick Swayze refused to use a Stunt Double, as he never had one for fight scenes or car chases.
• Playing Against Type: Gary Busey, best known for playing crazed and hammy villains, plays an FBI Agent. He's still fairly hammy, though.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: For the ending set in Australia, Johnny's hair is noticeably longer and Bodhi's hair is noticeably shorter as Keanu Reeves had outgrown his hair for Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Patrick Swayze had cut his hair for City of Joy (1992) respectively. This makes sense as the ending is set nine months after the film's events.
• Referenced by...:
  • The Surfer Dude character of French actor/comedian Jean Dujardin called Brice de Nice, who appears in two films which parody Point Break.
  • This is one of Danny Butterman's favorite movies in Hot Fuzz, and he even reenacts the Firing in the Air a Lot scene when shooting his father is the alternative.
  • Iron Man calls Thor "Point Break" in The Avengers (2012), presumably finding him similar to Patrick Swayze. To Thor's chagrin, in Thor: Ragnarok Tony has made "Point Break" as his voice-activation code in the Quinjet.
  • Young Sheldon: Missy rents this movie to Tonya in "German for Beginners and Crazy Old Man with a Bat".
• Stillborn Franchise: At one point, there were talks of making a Point Break 2, with Keanu Reeves reprising his role as Johnny Utah and Swayze reprising his role as Bodhi (apparently, Bodhi survived the ending). Swayze's death in 2009 put an end to these plans.
• Tom Hanks Syndrome: This is the first action movie which starred Keanu Reeves and the first film where he played an Action Hero, while his past career was mainly composed of teenage movies and arthouse films. Some critics even criticized the film because of this, fearing that it would be the Star-Derailing Role of Keanu's career.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Tom Sizemore has an uncredited role as a DEA Agent.
  • James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow re-wrote the final script together and go uncredited.
• Wag the Director: For insurance reasons, production refused to let Patrick Swayze perform the skydiving stunts, despite the fact that Swayze was an experienced skydiver. Not happy with this, Swayze and the second unit went out on a weekend and filmed skydiving stunts without the studio's knowledge. He then presented the footage and got it included in the final cut.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Matthew Broderick, Willem Dafoe, Johnny Depp, Val Kilmer, and Charlie Sheen were all considered for the role of Johnny Utah.
  • Ridley Scott was the first choice to direct the movie.
  • Michael Biehn revealed in an interview that there were briefly talks of him co-starring as Bohdi, but plans fell through.
  • The film was originally about skateboarding.
• Word of God: Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron co-wrote the ending. According to Cameron, Bohdi killed himself at the end.
• Working Title: Johnny Utah and Riders of the Storm.

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