Not as simple as it looks, bro. Kathryn Bigelow's surf-sploitation action drama has a wholesome passage at its core for all-american rookie Johnny Utah. However there's a bigger rite of passage going on; a trail of the soul, a passage to a richer life. Bodhi's philosophical spirituality aside, Utah does indeed go through a life change. He may be on the right side of the law but he begins to question who has the better life; he ceases to be the young textbook hot shot and opens himself up to a self-indulgent, thrill-seeking, drifting existence, and he finally relaxes. Tyler the sexy tomboy who originally was just a asset, becomes a lover, the suspect becomes a friend, the job becomes a thrill. Eventually, when Johnny dives (parachute-less) out a plane after Bodhi he is not doing it because catching him is his job, he's doing it for everything his partner has endured, he's doing it for his lover, he's doing it because he is a more reckless and emotionally-charged person. He starts the film complaining that learning to surf is stupid and is too much effort to get the information he needs, but in the end is plummeting to certain death for what he believes is right. That's either extraordinarily passionate or incredibly stupid, perhaps both? Either way, it's not the textbook officer we met in the beginning, this is a man with a new lease on life.
Film Graduate, tea chugging, whiskey sipping metal head. Love of films, video games and a perfectly healthy appreciation for comic books. Black Bolt is the greatest superhero and Rock Me Amadeus is the best song ever made. No, don't argue.
