Point Break Is Gay

(Welcome to Movies Are Gay, a Pride Month series where we explore the intentional, or accidental, ways LGBTQIA+ themes, characters, and creatives have shaped cinema.)

I knew "Point Break" was gay before I ever saw it. I came to Kathryn Bigelow's 1991 action flick decades late, after stumbling across a Twitter thread in which someone posed a thrilling question to bisexual men specifically: what movie do you consider your queer awakening? I clicked through the replies expecting a variety of answers, but was surprised to see one title again and again: "Point Break."

To be fair, even if I hadn't had the heads up, I would've caught onto the simmering homoeroticism of "Point Break" pretty quickly. The movie, which is currently streaming on Pluto TV, walks the fine line between camp and serious action, drama, and romance, and does so beautifully. It stars a young Keanu Reeves (who would star in "My Own Private Idaho" two months later, but had already played gay by this point) and Patrick Swayze (still a few years off from "To Wong Foo," but already crushed-on by men and women aplenty), both radiating full movie-star wattage.

The plot of "Point Break" ostensibly pits these two pretty men against one another, but the script — and their performances — at times makes the story feel more like a yearning near-romance than a rivalry. Reeves plays Johnny Utah, a football player-turned-FBI agent tasked with hunting down a gang of bank robbers called the Ex-Presidents. The Presidents turn out to be led by Swayze's Bodhi, a surfer with a captivating life philosophy and a love for high-octane thrills. Johnny goes undercover, embedding himself in Bodhi's crew, and the two men spend much of the movie circling one another with intense curiosity, each mesmerized by the other's projected persona.

Johnny and Bodhi likely weren't written as queer characters, but Reeves and Swayze pull toward one another like magnets, and the movie crackles with fantastic potential energy because of it. W. Peter Iliff's screenplay also includes plenty of moments that play with our expectations for an ostensibly heterosexual story — like a shared love interest with a boy's name (Tyler, played by Lori Petty) and a boyish haircut that makes her easy to mistake for Reeves in key shots. All of this makes the plotline of "Point Break," which is outlandish on paper, work flawlessly on screen. Johnny inevitably finds himself questioning his commitment to the Bureau's mission, thanks in part to the status quo-bucking freedom he's found on the waves — and in Bodhi's inner circle.

The movie's excellence is inextricable from its homoeroticism. "Point Break" rocks because it takes what feels like a Mad Lib of male-skewing tropes (Crimes! Extreme sports! Being really into a chick you just met!) and blends them with a shock of unexpected sexual tension and surprising emotional sensitivity. The result is an intoxicating cinematic brew, one that bubbles up before boiling over during the film's pitch-perfect conclusion.

The third act of "Point Break" sets up a showdown between Bodhi and Johnny that seems inevitable, but after everything we've seen, Johnny almost seems more likely to kiss Bodhi than kill him. "I know it's hard for you, Johnny," Bodhi tells his friend-turned-foe before dramatically jumping from a plane toward the end of the film, "I know you want me so bad, it's like acid in your mouth." The power of "Point Break" is that viewers can taste the acid, too, and somehow, it's as sweet as it is stinging.

"Point Break" is currently streaming on Pluto TV.