MANILA, Philippines - You might recognize 26-year-old heartthrob Luke Bracey (photo) from his role as the young Dawson Cole in last year’s box-office hit The Best Of Me.
Luke is occupying the Keanu Reeves role in a remake of 1991’s cult movie Point Break.
“Filmed on a huge budget of $120M and financed by Alcon, Warner Bros. and Lionsgate, the Point Break remake is about a group of extreme athletes whose mission is to rob from the rich and give to the poor. The rich have taken so much from our planet and the poor are suffering and being exploited every day. For these athletes, it’s time that those affluent businessman around the world share their wealth,” continues Luke.
“This new version expands the story so it’s taking place on a global scale, not just in Venice and California like the first one. The characters aren’t just surfing, there’s wing suiting, snowboarding, rock climbing and motocrossing and every obstacle is a prelude to a sophisticated and well-planned criminal activity.”
“The dangerous stunts you will see in the movie were filmed without camera tricks or special effects, which means the actors, the extreme athletes, the stunt coordinators were in real danger during the shooting. I guess what kept us safe was that everyone involved were professionals and they knew what they were doing,” Luke adds, “and we prayed a lot.”
For many movies, the answer to the question “How did they get that shot?” can be summed up in a single word: Computers. But for Point Break — the answer is a lot less boring. “We shot it entirely in camera,” says director Ericson Core of this seminal BASE-jump set piece. “With cameras mounted on the helmets of the wing suiters themselves that were flying up to 165 miles per hour.”
They were falling that fast because they had just jumped off a towering rock formation in the Swiss Alps. Production had armed itself with many of the sport’s most experienced emissaries. (Sadly, one member of the team, Jhonathan Florez, died after production while in preparation for another event.)
The filmmakers shot in 10 countries on four continents, capturing a plethora of death-defying activities. “We took extreme sports beyond surfing and skydiving,” says Core. Edgar Ramirez (Zero Dark Thirty) plays Bodhi, the character originated by Patrick Swayze, and the leader of the film’s antiheroic thieves, while Luke is Johnny Utah, the agent tasked of taking them down. At one point, Core had his two stars perched over Angel Falls in Venezuela, more than 3,200 feet above the ground.
Point Break is now showing nationwide.