"One of the most numbing things about many movies today is how wildly out of scale they seem to go: the way visual and technical virtuosity is juxtaposed with silly, vacuous stories. "Point Break" (citywide) may be a prime example. It's a movie full of golden, liquid oceanside scenes, aerial ballets, Steadicams flying through packed offices and corridors, massed towering waves crashing down at us—and violent car-crash and gun-battle pyrotechnics splattering all over the screen in bright, violent, bloody shards. It's beautiful, but it's dumb."

"Kathryn Bigelow once referred to Point Break as a “wet Western.” If the cowboy prides himself on conquering new frontiers, on taming the wilderness, the surfer prides himself on giving himself to it, to becoming one with it. At Point Break’s end, Johnny Utah finds Bodhi on an Australian beach where the legendary 50-year storm takes place: “twice a century the ocean lets us know just how small we really are.” Johnny has been hunting Bodhi all this time. It’s their final showdown, and they fight as the storm rages on. Johnny handcuffs Bodhi to him as the authorities arrive. But Johnny decides to let him go, honoring Bodhi’s request to ride one last wave. And the ocean seems bluer with Bodhi in it. Johnny looks at his badge, then throws it into the ocean, a move mirroring Clint Eastwood’s Harry Callaghan tossing his badge in Dirty Harry. But Johnny raises a middle finger figuratively to Harry’s brutal machismo, and to rules, control, law and order. Johnny Utah is not quite ready to give himself over to the 50-year storm, but he’s done with the system. He loses his badge, and he gains a soul."

"The ocean shimmers behind Point Break’s credits, glowing gold. The words Point and Break cross over, merging and dissolving, and so do the names Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi is a silhouette surfing in slow motion against a soft-blue sea as luminous as a Romantic painting, a mythic figure out of time. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves’s Johnny Utah loads a shotgun in a gray downpour. He fires at paper targets, and an FBI agent clicks a stopwatch. With this opening sequence, Kathryn Bigelow tells us that the very different worlds of an FBI agent and a surfer will collide, that these two men are destined to meet and to change each other."

"Among the film's especially energetic sequences are a furious two-man chase on foot through a heavily populated neighborhood, shot vigorously with a hand-held camera; sustained and amazing sky-diving scenes guaranteed to make the palms sweat, and a police raid on a house that becomes a wild melee and turns a lawnmower into a potentially deadly weapon. This last episode, and others like it, prove definitively that testosterone-crazed movie violence is by no means the sole province of male directors. Especially fiery and scene-stealing is Gary Busey, as the gruff Nick Nolte-style wild man who is Johnny's F.B.I. partner and foil. Mr. Swayze, more tranquil, is best when showing off his proficiency for glamorous athletics and least good when taking the screenplay seriously. When another character says, of Mr. Swayze's Bodhi, "He's got this gift for blankness," the thought seems all too true."

"This turns out to be one of those beach bum-cosmic high armed robberies with which Southern California F.B.I. agents are no doubt constantly plagued. And Johnny turns out to be the perfect candidate for the job of surfing detective. He looks good in a wet suit. He figures out how to extract information from a nice-looking female surf expert (Lori Petty). Pretty soon he is showing up at the office saying things like "Caught my first tube this morning, sir." He totes his surfboard with him to prove the point."

"Bigelow and her crew are also gifted filmmakers. There's a footchase through the streets, yards, alleys and living rooms of Santa Monica; two skydiving sequences with virtuoso photography, powerful chemistry between the good and evil characters, and an ominous, brooding score by Mark Isham that underlines the mood. The plot of "Point Blank," summarized, invites parody (rookie agent goes undercover as surfer to catch bank robbers). The result is surprisingly effective."

"The bodhi tree, according to the Buddhists, is the tree beneath which one finds enlightenment. That is not exactly how it works with Bodhi, the surfing bank robber who is the existential hero of "Point Break," but he is such a persuasive character that a young FBI agent falls under his spell. Or maybe it is Southern California itself that attracts the agent - that land of surf and skydiving and strange karma, so seductive to a square football hero out of Ohio."

"This stuff was so revolutionary that Hollywood took almost a decade to catch up. In some respects, Point Break’s effect on pop culture was immediate: it brought extreme sports into the mainstream and made Reeves the 1990s’ defining action star, just as Bigelow predicted. But it was only ten years later, with the success of The Fast and the Furious – a car-based Point Break remake in all but name – that brotherly love and beautiful men had become ingrained in action-movie culture."

"I hate this Johnny. I really do. I hate violence. That is why I had Rosie do this, I could never do that man, I could never hold a knife to Tyler's throat, she was my woman, we shared time. But, Rosie, he's like a machine. He's got this gift of blankness. Once you set him in motion, he will not stop. So, when three o'clock comes, he will gut her like a pig, and try not to get any on his shoes and there is nothing I can do."

"What’s more, the male-on-female perving is staged as a groan-worthy gag. Johnny is all but tripping over his tongue as he spies on Tyler through binoculars while she changes out of her swimsuit. The film’s admiration for Reeves’ and Swayze’s bodies, on the other hand, is subtler – and coded into every shot. Look out, for instance, for the almost indiscernible drop into slow-motion in the sequence where Johnny showers at the beach: it’s one of the stealthiest phwoars in modern cinema. It’s unlikely that a male director would have had the nerve for this – or that two more established male stars, with hard-won hard-man reputations to defend, would have thrown themselves into it with quite so much gusto. In a promotional interview, Swayze described the film as being miles from “slap-ass, macho, jokey crap…I wanted to play it like a love story between two men.” In 80s action movies, the male body is a weapon of war. Point Breakturns it into a source of pleasure. And pleasure is what Point Break’s leads are chasing. Whether surfing, skydiving, playing American football or robbing banks in rubber masks, it’s all in pursuit of what Tyler purringly calls “the ultimate ride”: a thrill so big it recalibrates your worldview."

"It's not about good guys and bad guys. It's a little more complicated when your good guy-your hero-is seduced by the darkness inside him and your 'villain' is no villain whatsoever, he's more of an anti-hero."

"In California, you can party, have sex and surf, before it's time to go to work."

"27 banks in three years - anything to catch the perfect wave!"

"100% Pure Adrenaline."

"If you want the ultimate rush, you've got to be willing to pay the ultimate price. It's not tragic to die doing what you love."

"I'm so hungry I could eat the ass end out of a dead rhino, I should have had you get me three of these things!"

"Feel what the wave is doing. Then accept its energy. Get in sync. Then charge with it."

"Utah, get me two!"

"(About Lycans) I just killed them. I didn't pay much attention to their anatomy."

"(Cleaner Pilot): (Marcus pulls harder) (To Cleaner Gunner) We're going down!"

"(Cleaner Pilot): (Helicopter being pulled down by Marcus) (To Cleaner Gunner) Cut us loose!"

"(Cleaner Gunner): I can't. Not without taking her out. I can't get a shot."

"(Cleaner Pilot): What are you waiting for? Shoot them."

"(Selene's father): So you're the one keeping a watch over this, for me, have you? I've been searching everywhere for this, My-Darling."

"(Cleaner): Area secure, Sir."

"(Dead Lycans Tag): -subject injected 850ml THASARINE :to arrest regression"

"(Vampire Soldier in Background):(Shouting out) they’re turning!!!"

"(Vampire Soldier in Background): Form two groups. You, douse them in fuel."

"(Pre-Title Scrolling Text Sequence): EIGHT CENTURIES AGO, UNKNOWN TO HUMANITY, A BLOOD FEUD RAGED BETWEEN A RULING CLASS OF VAMPIRES AND A REBELLIOUS LEGION OF WEREWOLVES KNOWN AS LYCANS. LEGEND TELLS THAT THE WAR BEGAN WITH TWO BROTHERS, THE IMMORTAL SONS OF ALEXANDER CORVINUS: MARKUS, BITTEN BY BAT, BECAME THE BLOOD LEADER OF THE VAMPIRES. WILLIAM BITTEN BY WOLF, BECAME THE FIRST AND MOST POWERFUL LYCAN."

"(Last Words, to one of his fellow Cleaners) You all right? (Right then is attacked by William Corvinus from behind)"

"(To Selene) All we have are UV rounds. They won't take him down."

"(About William Corvinus) He went right through there."

"(To Selene, about the faded childlike painting on the dungeon wall) What is that?"

"(To Selene) Is this it?"

"(To Selene) Which way?"

"(Offers Selene a scuba mask) Selene?"

"(To his men) Looks like we're getting wet."

"I don't see a way inside."

"(About William Corvinus' prison) We're getting close."

"(To Selene) No, wait. Wait... If you want Marcus, you'll need Alexander's help."

"(Looks at Alexander's blood pooling on the floor) Please, Sir. Let us help you."

"(Sees Alexander bleeding to death) Get the kit!"

"...Supplies were taken. Used weapons were left behind. The tavern incident occurred before dawn, so they couldn't have gotten far."

"(About Marcus) It seems he destroyed his own Coven, Sir."

"(About Amelia and her ontourage) No one survived. It seems Kraven's men might have been present... but they did nothing to prevent it."

"Two Death Dealers were killed. We found no Lycan bodies. Apparently they were using a new kind of ammunition... some sort of UV round."

"But otherwise unharmed, as ordered."

"(To Alexander Corvinus/Lorenz Macaro) Sir."