When it comes to the mysterious longevity of “Point Break,” only a man as eloquent as Keanu Reeves could put the phenomenon into words.
Whoa.
Released in 1991, the surfer-action flick starring Reeves and Patrick Swayze didn’t make much of a dent in the box office, finishing 29th for the year behind “Doc Hollywood” and “The Rocketeer.”
And then something strange happened. In the two decades since its release, the film has slowly garnered a cult following and has been discovered by countless millions on VHS, DVD and cable TV.
Director Kathryn Bigelow may have won an Oscar for “The Hurt Locker,” but to many she will always be the one who shot that, like, totally righteous skydiving scene, man!
We may as well face it. “Point Break” is forever, bros. The story of undercover FBI agent Johnny Utah (Reeves) infiltrating a gang of pseudo-Buddhist bank-robbing surfers led by Bodhi (Swayze) is a film that now partially defines the ’90s.
Friday, a stage show parody called “Point Break Live!” makes its New York City debut at Brooklyn’s Bell House. More performances follow later in the month at Webster Hall and Littlefield.
Jaime Keeling, the show’s creator, loved the movie as a child for its action. In college, she rediscovered it and began to appreciate it on another level.
“I love how every bit of dialogue is screamed,” she says. “The dialogue is over-the-top and fun to memorize. Everything they say in that movie is pure gold.”
She and her fellow philosophy students also loved the movie’s metaphysical bent.
“My roommates and I started repeating the dialogue, and it became a college party joke,” says Keeling, who lives in Bed-Stuy. “We’d repeat lines like, ‘He’s a searcher.’ ‘What’s he searching for?’ ‘The ultimate ride, man.’ ”
“Point Break Live!” premiered in Seattle in 2003 and has played sporadically all over the country. It’s been running continuously in Los Angeles since 2007, outside of a brief hiatus this year. One of its appeals is that a random audience member is chosen each night to play Reeves’ Johnny Utah. The generally befuddled performer reads the lines off cue cards.
“When I started doing the show in Seattle, people were coming out of the woodwork saying it was their absolute favorite film,” Keeling says. “I also had some friends who were surfers, and they’d say, ‘You cannot make fun of this movie. This movie is sacred.’ ”
The original film’s writer, Peter Iliff, was waiting tables in Los Angeles back in the late 1980s when he sold the script for $6,000. Now, 20 years and numerous feature films and TV shows later, all anyone wants to ask him about is “Point Break.”
“I guess all these rowdy teenagers grew up doing bong hits to this thing,” Iliff says. “That’s a story I hear over and over from studio executives who are now in their 30s: ‘When I was a kid . . .’ ”
Just in the past month, Iliff has been invited to introduce the movie at an outdoor screening at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, to host a party and screening at an LA bar and to the reopening of “Point Break Live!” in LA.
“I get letters from all over the world, talking about how this movie changed their life,” the writer says. “Sincere, pour-your-heart-out letters that say, ‘The character of [Swayze’s] Bodhi and his philosophy changed me. I started surfing and I got in touch with the water.’ I don’t know how to respond other than, ‘That’s really lovely.’ ”
Gary Busey, who played Reeves’ FBI partner, tells The Post that people still quote lines from the movie back to him, including the one in which he demands that Johnny Utah bring him a sub.
“When I was in New York for the taping of the finale of ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ in 2011, our VIP escort, Anthony, said to us while waiting in the press line: ‘Two meatball sandwiches, Utah!’ ” Busey says. “I responded, ‘That sounds good to me,’ and by the time I got into my dressing room, there were two meatball sandwiches.”
Sandwiches, screenings — “Point Break” seems to have wormed its way into pop culture for good. There’s a band called Special Agent Utah. Online, you can find photos of guys who’ve gotten Ronald Reagan mask tattoos. And, of course, the movie has a corresponding drinking game. One rule: Drink if “you see the majesty of our mother Earth’s oceans in slow-motion to the tune of a whale song.”
A remake is also in the works for 2014 to be directed by Ericson Core, a longtime cinematographer. Iliff says the script by Kurt Wimmer focuses less on surfing and more on extreme sports. And get this: Matthew McConaughey will play Bodhi.
Whoa.
reed.tucker@nypost.com