President Ronald Reagan (played Patrick Swayze)
Saturday Night Live cartoonist Robert Smigel had a fun series of shorts that imagined the Ex-Presidents as a band of Avengers-like superheroes, but what if they didn’t use their powers for good? The surfing bank robbers in Kathryn Bigelow’s influential thriller also go by the name the Ex-Presidents. Disguised as Reagan, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Lyndon Johnson, they tell victims, “We’ve been screwing you for years,” and that their stick-ups are just another way of doing the same. (Naturally, “Nixon” has to offer a variation on “I am not a crook.”)
Reagan is the gang’s leader and getaway car driver. In the film’s central action sequence, he leads federal agent Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) on a frenetic foot chase through a suburban neighborhood. Utah has the chance to shoot him, but Reagan charms him with his piercing, hypnotic gaze, and Utah fires harmlessly into the air. Under his latex mask, of course, Reagan is Utah’s new pal and mentor Bodhi, who enjoys surfing, playing football, skydiving, and kidnapping. Even at their final confrontation, Utah can’t bring himself to take Bodhi/Reagan down, letting him surf into oblivion instead. Like the real Reagan, Patrick Swayze’s version is charismatic, Teflon, and untouchable.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBK4V3NwiZ4]