Most Rewatchable Scene
The beach football game; the first bank robbery stakeout; the airplane parachute scene
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:13:33Read transcript
- Candidate one is the beach football game, which one host has analyzed enough to nearly keep score: heavy air yardage to Lori Petty wide open in the end zone, unclear light from the car headlights, an offensive and a defensive line unheard of in backyard football, and Keanu always having time although Swayze nailed him once.
- Other candidates: the surfer brawl, where Anthony Kiedis turns out to be one of the dudes, shoots himself in the foot and Busey has to intervene; the big bank robbery leading to the foot chase, the moderator's own preference; the airplane and parachute scene; the airport shootout; and the ending.
- One host takes the parachute scene because it holds every part of the movie in three minutes: the two men battling for alpha-male status, Keanu backing down as Bodhi out-crazies him, the injury, and Bodhi letting the injured Utah know he has been beaten while staying just out of reach.
- Picks the beach football game because it grounds these counterculture characters, who look weird and spout philosophical things, in an American tradition: good old American boys playing football on the beach. — Jason Concepcion
- The football game also shows Bodhi's magnetic charisma, and when it devolves into Utah versus Bodhi, Utah earns his respect; it is a great introduction scene, with Bodhi's 'You don't know who this is?'
- Another backs the first bank robbery, the stakeout: Busey sends Utah for two meatball subs ('give me two'), and at the very end Utah has the shot on Bodhi and does not take it, the moment the movie becomes a psychological contest with Bodhi holding the upper hand.
- A host says 'I've changed my opinion' and goes with the beach football game, a scene they stay for even when the family is heading out to dinner, adding 'as you said' that it introduces the crew through the old eighties formula of bringing the new guy into the group with a contrived activity; the speaker is not identified.
- The football scenes are hilarious: Keanu shows the seeds of The Replacements, scrambling like a little white Mike Vick; Swayze sacks him off the edge like DeMarcus Ware; Keanu sheds seven or eight tacklers and runs Swayze down after 840 yards, out of bounds and into the water.
- When the surfers rush over and Bodhi introduces Johnny Utah as all-conference, the hosts say the writers could have made him a Heisman finalist, doubt surfers on the beach every day knew who he was, and one defends it because he beat SC in the Rose Bowl, so Southern California fans would know.