Director: Lorcan Finnegan
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Finn Little, Nic Cassim
Genre: Thriller / Drama
Rating: MA
‘The Surfer’ is an Australian
film (albeit with an Irish director and American star), set in southern Western
Australia, so we get plenty of great scenery, beach vistas, Aussie soundscapes
and gratuitous animal shots – I think they had everything but a koala! Cage
plays the nameless “surfer” (funny when he says near the end: “I have a name”,
and then you realise the audience doesn’t know what it is!), who’s been in the
USA and wants to move home and take his son (Little) surfing. He runs into Scally
(McMahon), a self-styled surfing guru/cult leader, who makes this more difficult
than it should be.
At first you don’t like any of
the locals (I swear most Aussies aren’t like this!), as what starts off as
local protectionism slowly turns more sinister. There’s also a homeless man (Cassim),
which sets up a nice plot twist as Cage does Cage and spends lots of time doing
the wide-eyed/mouth open Cage stare, presumably due to heat stroke. There’s a
fair bit of “what’s real and what’s not”, which is pretty well stitched
together at the end. Basically, Cage is gaslight by Scally, his acolytes and
local cop (Rosniak). Good to see Tapsell as one of the few regular people here.
It has some almost-funny moments,
but mostly it’s all a bit wry. There’s definitely some gross bits, and while
the tension does build, it’s not really fully as weird, violent, or chaotic as
other recent Cage films (i.e. ‘The Unbearable Weight of Massie Talent’, ‘Colour
Out of Space’, ‘Dream Scenario’). Score is ok, with soundtrack almost non-existent.
Great to see more Australian locations on screen. Good, without being great.
Overall: Surfing is suffering (in
this case)
Gav’s Rating: 3 stars
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