A Friday night last month was the first time I’d ever seen this. I really should have done so before but I was too busy in my youth crawling around the arty-farty remnants from Fellini’s nightmares.
Gary Busey was the main draw, someone I’ll watch in anything. I have always retained an admiration for his white chompers. He is a kind of human shark.
It’s an impressive movie from the off with its immediate characterisation – you know straight away what the players are all about, and the dialogue sounds like it’s satirical but it isn’t. A template for satire is on display.
The weird Zen thing which Swayze and Reeves have between them is hilarious. Swayze knows the lad is FBI but just strings him along for the banter and to better the both of them. How do you connect EXTREME SURFING and the rest of it with robbing banks?
And the director Kathryn Bigelow has rather the unique message going on for her with her approximation of women being just as solid as the lads and kicking the fuck out of them, and the boys giving it back. It’s a non-gender-nonsense movie. All rather refreshing, and then you realise it’s from 1991, WAY ahead of its time.
So much energy; within every frame is a zest for the kinetic. It’s not exactly ‘deep’ but an attempt is made. It’s only a bank heist/surfer movie after all.
Outstanding.
