Johnny Utah - yes, Reeves plays a guy named Johnny freakin’ Utah - is a green FBI agent assigned to the bank robbery detail in Los Angeles. When a string of robberies carried out by guys in masks of ex-presidents is linked to surfing, Johnny has to go undercover in the world of the big wave. But Johnny, poor, dumb Johnny, is easily duped and he quickly becomes enamored with the people he’s supposed to be spying on. When asked what appeals to him about the surfer lifestyle, Johnny mumbles, “I’m drawn to it. Or something.” Another time he tells his love interest Tyler (Lori Petty), “I can’t describe what I’m feeling!” I’ll bet you can’t, Keanu.

That’s just the sort of philosophy espoused by POINT BREAK, where dumb surfers talk dumb in ways that makes them sound smart. Johnny is particularly keen on the stoned, quasi-philosophical ramblings of a surfer named Bodhi (Patrick Swayze). He is a “modern savage” with a head of hair desperately in need of conditioner and a good brushing, but in the worldview of POINT BREAK he is a visionary. Here’s a sample of the man’s so-called insight: “This was never about money for us, it was about us against the system. That system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something to those dead souls inching along the freeways in their metal coffins. We show them that human spirit is still alive!” Not in this movie, it isn’t.

You’ve heard of plot holes? Well, POINT BREAK is all plot hole. Johnny Utah (and the actor who plays him) may very well be the worst undercover agent in history. He uses his real name when he introduces himself to Bodhi and his crew, and since he was a famous football player in college, it makes him a very easy man to dig up information on. BREAK also features a scene where it is pitch black night on the beach while simultaneously it is dawn in the water, and another where it is pouring rain on the beach and sunny in the ocean.

Worst of all, POINT BREAK and its characters are vastly dumber than its audience. It takes Keanu Reeves over an hour and one very bad lead to realize the surfers who have shown him the way are, in fact, the same guys who are robbing banks. The audience realizes it almost immediately. Once the characters are laid out we can guess pretty quickly who will live and who will die (and in what order) and exactly where and how the film will end. But the plot drags on and on while Johnny Utah, the Inspector Clouseau of the FBI, very slowly puts together the pieces of a case similar to the kind of jigsaw puzzle you used to do when you were in kindergarten.