Surfing, skydiving, bank robberies, and Gary Busey. What do all of these things have in common? They were all a part of ‘Point Break’, one of the most overstuffed and deliriously satisfying action films ever made.

Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) is a hotshot FBI agent fresh out of the academy who finds himself saddled with a half-cocked partner Pappas (Busey). Pappas theorizes that the quartet of brilliant bank robbers (each of whom sports the mask of an ex-president) that have been terrorizing Los Angeles for several years is, in fact, a group of laid-back surfer dudes., Utah goes undercover in an attempt to infiltrate the surfer gang, and quickly finds himself in over his head – literally – as he’s nearly drowned in his first attempt at surfing, but saved by the boyish beach babe, Tyler (Lori Petty). Utah begs Tyler to teach him how to ride the waves, and, through her, meets the spiritual surf guru, Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), who teaches Utah just about everything else. Utah falls in love with Tyler just as quickly as he falls under the spell of Bodhi, discovering that there’s more to life than the his button down existence at the FBI. Unfortunately, Utah’s disillusionment and devotion to Bodhi and his crew clouds his judgment, as it soon becomes obvious that his newfound friends are the very same men he and Pappas have been looking for.

Director Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break is a lyrical, spiritual slice of action cheese, elevated by an uncharacteristic grace and subtlety that is truly the result of a woman’s touch, but still loaded with enough testosterone and machismo to feed the jones of even the most hardened adrenaline junkies. This is one of my guilty pleasure movies; one whose script draws as many groans as its gorgeous cinematography draws gasps, and it never fails to deliver the goods no matter how many times I’ve seen it. Beautiful, ballsy, and, as the tagline says, 100% pure adrenaline.

Fox continues to port its classic catalog to HD, and, as with releases such as Commando and Predator, Point Break comes with a little baggage in terms of the omnipresent grain,  as well as minor specks, and artifacts. There’s also a touch of softness in the image in places, but, for the most part, this transfer looks  pretty damned good – better than I’ve ever seen the film. Colors are lush and vibrant, with sparkling blues and warm golds. Even the blacks are fairly consistent, save for the minor buzzing of the unavoidable grain.

The DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 Surround mix really surprised me with its sheer bombastic assault on my audio system! This sucker is LOUD, but perfectly mixed and wonderfully crisp. Just listening to the rolling waves cascade across my movie room gave me goosebumps. Awesome job, Fox sound dudes!

Fox ports over the extras from the recent anniversary edition DVD, but, while the features are listed as SD, the featurettes look as though they’ve been ‘blown up’ a bit, as they look better than your typical standard definition fare. It’s still not 1080p, but the source seemed to respond nicely to my upconverter and, save for title cards and the like (which look a bit blurry and fuzzy), the footage from the film in these featurettes look nearly as good as the feature itself. We get a little less than an hour’s worth of stuff ranging from the “It’s Make or Break” retrospective to the stunt-centric “Adrenaline Junkies”.  Also featured are some really archaic looking deleted scenes (many with time codes), a stills gallery, and a few HD trailers for other Fox BD titles. It’s not a bad haul, by any means, but those hoping for HD exclusive features are out of luck.

Point Break is a classic piece of post-80’s action silliness that benefits from a deft directorial debut and the fresh, feminine perspective given to a genre that was primarily a men’s club prior to Bigelow’s film. This by no means makes Point Break a “soft” film – far from it – but there’s definitely something a little extra here that elevates it above the ‘Tango and Cashes’ crowd, and seeing this adrenaline fueled flick in all of its HD glory is a rush unto itself.