There is a scene in the film Ghost in which the bewildered spectre of the character played by Patrick Swayze hovers over a dead Patrick Swayze. At the time, never having been terribly impressed by the one-time dancer's acting ability, I wrote that the idea of two Patrick Swayzes on the same planet was almost too much for the human mind to contemplate. This seemed an amusing wisecrack at the time. But today, I and millions of others earnestly wish that there was a second Patrick Swayze to replace the one that died yesterday. Today we are bereft.
Somewhere along the line, much like John Wayne, Swayze became one of those stars whose acting skill ultimately became irrelevant to his appeal. This is because, much like Wayne, he made a lot of movies that no one remembers and a handful of movies no one will ever forget. For most people, that list is topped by the heartwarming Dirty Dancing; for others the fantasy of a love that transcends both death and Whoopi Goldberg puts Ghost in the lead. But for me and for many others to whom romantic films always take a back seat to the macabre, it will always be Point Break that turned Patrick Swayze into a beloved movie star, and a bona fide cult figure. I personally like Point Break more than The Big Lebowski. And I love The Big Lebowski.
The 1991 Kathryn Bigelow film, in which Keanu Reeves plays a fabulously good-looking though not especially cerebral undercover cop, revolves around a gang of surfing bank robbers led by the disarmingly philosophical Swayze. The very idea of making a movie about surfing, philosophical gangsters led by Swayze, who Reeves vows to bring to justice, reaffirms why America is such a great country. Anyone can make movies about good love gone bad. Anyone can make movies about the lives of others. But we make movies about surfing bank robbers who spout Buddhist wisdom to undercover cops named Johnny Utah. And we have the good sense to cast Swayze in them.
Our favourite movies are never the ones that are shown out of competition at Cannes. They're the ones you can't wait until your kids are old enough to see. They're the ones you always recommend when a friend calls up and asks what film she should watch to cheer her up and you cannot, cannot believe that she has never crossed paths with Johnny Utah and Bodhi. They're the ones that if someone told you they didn't understand their appeal, you would terminate the friendship on the spot. They're the ones that make you feel that the stars on the screen will always be young, and always be right there in the DVD rack when you need them.
As Swayze slipped away over the last two years, as it became apparent that there would be no more Road Houses, no more Steel Dawns, movie-lovers slowly began to realise what they were losing. "You're going down, Bodhi," is the line Keanu Reeves delivers toward the end of Point Break. And Bodhi, alas, has gone down. Too bad he doesn't have a ghost to replace him.
