Review
THE SURFER – Review
Nicholas Cage continues his recent exploration of the weird end of the cinematic pool, with THE SURFER, a paranoid tale of crazy, nightmare-like incidents that takes the form of a recreation of a 1970’s B-movie Australian film, an homage to Australian New Age and Ozploitation films. Oddly, the film was made by a pair of Irishmen, director Lorcan Finnegan and screenwriter Thomas Martin, although it was shot on location in Australia. The writer and director share a love of Australian New Wave, also known as Ozploitation, and includes horror, comedy and thrillers examples, a style that includes both WALKABOUT and MAD MAX. THE SURFER is an ambitious film, referencing a John Cheever story, “The Swimmer,” and drawing on a real-life incident of a bullying gang of surfers in Southern California, who terrorized a public beach they claimed as their own, and offering social commentary on how people treat the homeless and those less wealthy.
However, despite its high ambitions, the resulting film is much more weird than anything, more unsettling than horror. Fans of Ozploitation films might pick up on all the references but the casual viewer might not get more than the ’70s B movie vibe. If you relish the aesthetics of late ’60s – early 70s B movies, THE SURFER certainly captures the look, right down to the yellow, shadow-outlined text of the opening credits, which open by dramatically proclaiming “Nicholas Cage is …The Surfer.” However, THE SURFER is something much crazier and strange. While still in the psychological horror wheelhouse, it is more psychological terror than violence.
Nicholas Cage plays an unnamed man who arrives at an Australian public beach to go surfing with this teen-aged son (Finn Little). The man looks prosperous, wearing a nice suit and driving a Lexus, and he is on the verge of fulfilling a long-time dream, to buy back the house where he grew up, a mansion perched above that very beach and which had belonged to his grandfather. All the man wants to do is go surfing with his son, and tell him about buying back the house.
Father and son change into surfing gear, grab their boards and head for the public beach. But suddenly their way is blocked by some aggressive local surfers who get right in the father’s face and scream “don’t live here, don’t surf here.” The man tries to explain that he grew up there, so he is a local and all he wants to do is surf with this son, but the bullies won’t let them pass, becoming increasingly aggressive as they repeat their mantra “don’t live here, don’t surf here.” Down on the beach, the nameless main character spies someone he remembers from childhood Scally Callahan (Julian McMahon), who seems to be the leader, but Callahan ignores him.
Cage’s character retreats to his car, where phone calls reveal there are other problems. The real estate agent says there is a new buyer and the price has gone up, and he demands the man meet the new offer immediately. He calls his broker, to try to find more cash and to ask for an increase in the loan he’ll need to buy it. It is becoming clear that this house is a bit of a financial reach for the man but he is panicked that the house might not come back on the market if he loses the chance to buy it now.
His son is less thrilled about the whole surfing with dad thing, and complains that his father took him out of school for this outing. A call from his wife reveals they are separated and a divorce is pending, adding a sense of a desperation to the situation. Still the man remains focused on buying that house and maintains a confident, even arrogant demeanor, even when a co-worker calls from work, asking where he is and warning him to be back in the office tomorrow.
You know things will go wrong but the shape that takes is different than expected. After taking his son home, Cage’s nameless character returns to the parking lot above the beach, but it is here things start to get weird. Not at first – the man tries again to reason with the bullies, calls his broker again, and seems determined to stubbornly stay there until something budges – bullies or the home purchase. Cage’s character witnesses the bullies harassing other who are there to surf, sometimes violently, and he meets an older man who appears to be living in his car, who tells Cage that the bullies killed his dog. Eventually, Cage’s character calls the police after the surf bullies vandalize his Lexus.
The police don’t show up until morning, and it is a single cop who shows up. He is dismissive of Cage’s complaints but quizzes him sharply about if he has been sleeping in his car and tells him he can’t stay. We get the sense he thinks Cage is homeless. Cage’s character (and the audience) enter a nightmare state, where that expands. The longer he stays, the more disheveled he appears, and increasingly people treat him as if he is homeless, either condescending or cruel.
We start to lose a sense of time, along with the character. People we think just talked to him the day before, now no longer remember him except as a homeless person. Like in actual nightmares, the character seems to have no control over what is happening, things change suddenly and bizarre things happen. When his cell phone’s battery is drained and no one will let him charge it, things really spiral downward. The character seems to blur with the old man living in his car.
Cage’s character continues to unravel until a cruel confrontation with lead bully Callahan, after which the film takes an even weirder turn, into a cult conspiracy fantasy followed by strange events that defy any logic. The film ends with a kind of standoff and showdown which is even less real, leaving us with question, that THE SURFER refuses to answer. Draw your own conclusions about what it all meant, if anything. Once agais, logic is absent, just like in actual dreams. I fully expected Cage’s character to wake up at the end of the film but that’s not how it plays out.
Oddly, there is very little actual surfing in this film, only distant shots of surfers that look like stock footage, which may be a deliberate choice by the filmmakers to preserve the low-budget look. However, the film does offer Nicholas Cage a chance to act up a storm, taking his befuddled character through a full range of emotions, sadness, rage, confusion, arrogance and submission. The director tries to soften some of the existential pain with lovely nature shots, featuring wildlife and shots of the sea but it has little effect.
Basically, there is plenty of style but too little substance or sense, despite the film’s ambitions for social commentary or surreal thrills. Some viewers many embrace the weird here but audiences looking for a bit more of a rational plot probably will find this too weird to justify the trip. It reaches one point where is even seems like parody of the B-movie horror as it rushes to its puzzling conclusion.
THE SURFER opens in theaters on Friday, May 2, 2025.
RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars
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