1 Keanu Reeves ‘Point Break’ Stunt Was so Impossible, Writer Wanted to Cut It Out
Point Break was Keanu Reeves’ first action movie. We have that to thank for Speed, The Matrix, John Wick and the ones in between. Reeves played FBI Agent Johnny Utah, who goes undercover with surfers to find bank robbers. They take him skydiving too, so there are surfing and skydiving stunts. Screenwriter W. Peter Iliff objected to one, and it was James Cameron’s idea.
Iliff was a guest on the Script Apart podcast on Nov. 16, 2021. Discussing the evolution of his Point Break script, Iliff gave credit to James Cameron, who did rewrites. Iliff did disagree with Cameron on one stunt, but he lost that battle.
Keanu Reeves could not catch Patrick Swayze in freefall at the end of ‘Point Break’
In the climax of Point Break, Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) leaves Utah on the airplane with no more parachutes. So Utah jumps and catches him. Bodhi is impressed, but calls Utah’s bluff and forces him to drop his gun to pull the parachute ripcord.
“It was Jim having the final scene jumping out of the plane with the parachute,” Iliff said on Script Apart. “Now, I don’t think that’s humanly possible for a guy on his second jump to do, and I’m told it’s not. So now you’re entering into an area of not being physically possible and that was a line I didn’t want to cross. Some people like it, some people don’t.”
James Cameron didn’t let reality stop him
Realism is not a word likely to be associated with Point Break. It’s ironic, because Cameron was obsessed with realism in movies like The Abyss and Titanic. Perhaps he saw Point Break more akin to Aliens and The Terminator.
“Jim told me a story,” Iliff said. “He was flying over Spain. I love it, ‘I’m in a plane flying over Spain and I had this idea if you jumped without a parachute and I grab onto you and you’ve got one, I can’t hold the gun and hold you and pull the ripcord. I need three hands. I’ve got a gun on you, I’ve got to hold onto you and I’ve got to pull the ripcord.’ He came up with that bit which was a nice bit of logic and that drove him to write what I think is kind of a ridiculous moment.”
Iliff checked with his people to confirm he was right about the stunt. But, Point Break is a classic and that’s one of the best scenes.
“I have been told by parachute guys that you need to do 80 jumps before you can have that kind of body control,” Iliff said. “You would go into just a death spin. So things like that Jim did.”
James Cameron did give Keanu Reeves this badass moment
Another action scene Cameron added was the chase in the middle of the movie. It ends with Reeves fighting a bad guy near a running lawn mower in what ends up blowing a DEA sting operation.
“As you know, Jim Cameron did the shooting script so let’s give the brilliant Jim Cameron his total due,” Iliff said. “An example of what Jim did would be the lawnmower scene, that great fight. I wish I could say that was me but that’s just the brilliance of Jim Cameron finding a new way to do something I haven’t seen before. I’m going to shove your face in the blades of a lawnmower.”
