Passion and Poetry: Inside the New Point Break

The new Point Break stars Edgar Ramirez and Luke Bracey as Bodhi and Johnny Utah, respectively 

“They’re poets,” says leading man Edgar Ramirez of the incredible stunt team at the heart of the new Point Break. “…For lack of a better word, we call them athletes, but they’re poets in my opinion. They resolve a deeply emotional urge through amazing physical and mental technique. For me, that’s precisely what defines art.”

Aiming for a bigger, faster and more expansive scope than Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 original, the new Point Break sets Ramirez in the Bodhi role, made famous by Patrick Swayze. That leaves Luke Bracey to fill the shoes of Keanu Reeves’ Johnny Utah. 

“When I heard about the title ‘Point Break,’ I said, ‘I absolutely don’t want to remake that,” explains director Ericson Core, eschewing the new Point Break‘s “remake” classification. “At the same time, there was something I wanted to reimagine about it, which was the overall story about Johnny Utah and Bodie. The concept that were there. Bring them into our time. Bring them into 2015 instead of 1991.”

The new Point Break opens with an introduction to Utah set seven years before the rest of the story. A Motocross champion and YouTube star, Utah gives up a life of fame and thrills when he loses his best friend to a tragic Motocross accident. Jumping ahead seven years, we catch up with him as a young FBI Agent who, as in the original, is tasked with infiltrating a very unique band of thieves.

The new Point Break adds to the mythos a former poly-athlete and “eco-warrior” called Ono Ozaki. Attempting to achieve balance through extremes, Ozaki came up with a list of natural challenges called “The Ozaki Eight.” According to the fictional philosopher, athletes who outperform eight of the world’s most extreme situations will achieve a level of spiritual transcendence. Ozaki himself is said to have perished halfway through the eight, although Bodhi and his team have already accomplished three: when Utah goes undercover to join their ranks.

“I think it’s a chance for something that we don’t see in films very much where there’s a connection between two men on a deeper level,” Core continues. “Bohdi’s spirit is one that I think sort of recognizes in Johnny Utah that darker side and that edge that he has. It’s something that he could bring into his own family. Save him, in a way. For Utah, it’s a question of whether he can move that far in the direction of Bohdi. As much as he is pulled to that world, it’s about whether his own moral compass can find true north.”

To achieve the new Point Break‘s intensive action sequences, Core called upon the world’s top extreme sports athletes, many of whom were inspired two decades ago by the Bigelow version of the film.

“There’s no question that that movie inspired a generation towards skydiving. It just did,” says Jeb Corliss. “…In life, people define themselves as things. I surf, but I’m not a surfer. I snowboard, but I’m not a snowboarder. I’m a base jumper. That’s what I am.”

Although an injury prevented Corliss from doing stuntwork in the new Point Break, the famed wingsuit pilot served as a technical advisor on the entire production.

“The athletes were not just stunt people in this,” Core explains. “They were everything. They were location scouts. They were collaborators… We went to Holy Grail of each sport. For the athletes, the rewards outweighed the risks… These guys are not daredevils. They are the opposite. They are so conscious of the little time we have left on this Earth that they want to make the best out of it.”

One of the reasons the new Point Break took so long to make was because of the extensive preproduction work and training required for the film’s CGI-free action sequences. Athletes had to train for a full year before cameras were ready to start rolling.

“We went to 11 countries on four continents,” says Core. “A lot of those locations were picked by the athletes. We went to Switzerland particularly. Walenstadt, because of Jeb, whose flown “The Crack” before. An extraordinary jump, thousands of feet, that winds up flying beneath the Earth’s surface into a crack that goes below the Earth’s surface.”

Even if these athletes have accomplished similar feats in the past, filming their astonishing talent presents its own set of challenges. Because each athlete in a squirrel suit creates a wake vortex in the air, having four characters go at once becomes exponentially harder. That’s even before adding a high-flying cameraman to the mix. For Core and his team, however, the bigger the challenge, the better. 

“I think the core of this film is that you need to do something in your life that you feel passionate about,” says Ramirez. “Now, after all these experiences, what I want to do is live fully. I want to live as much as I can and have as much quality time with my life. I’m not going to base jump. I’m going to keep surfing, but not in a gigantic wave. But I want to live as many experiences as possible. That’s the spirit of the film. It doesn’t have to be a super dangerous experience. Whatever it is, try to find your passion.”

In the gallery viewer below, you can take a look at rock climbing featurette and several of the props and costumes featured in the new Point Break. Also starring Ray Winstone, Teresa Palmer and Delroy Lindo, the new Point Break hits the big screen December 25.