by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsell, Alexander Bertrand, Justin Rosniak
Intro:
... a Nicolas Cage movie for all the good and ill that that entails.
Ah Nicolas Cage, the absolute madman. You never quite know what you’ll get from him, one film to the next. Will it be a work of sublime lunacy like Mandy (2018)? Or a surprisingly affecting drama like Pig (2021)? A genuinely unhinged villain turn like Longlegs (2024)? Or a derivative throwaway like Willy’s Wonderland (2022)? The Cage giveth and the Cage taketh away, and in the case of his latest flick – the sun-drenched Aussie thriller The Surfer – the man delivers a bizarre rollercoaster ride, with peaks and troughs aplenty.
The Surfer begins, as many horrific incidents often do, on an Australian beach on a bright sunny day. Our protagonist, known only as the Surfer (Cage) is taking his Kid (Finn Little) to the Aussie beach that he used to surf as a nipper. The only problem? A cadre of menacing locals aren’t having a bar of it. Led by the charismatic but creepy Scally (Julian McMahon), these Bay Boys live by the mantra “Don’t live here, don’t surf here” and manage to menace Surfer and son back to the carpark. However, the Surfer doesn’t like this development one bit, and decides to escalate the situation, initially by legal means and later by means that are less so…
The Surfer wears its throwback vibe very much on its sleeve. From its ‘70s style opening titles to the retro style of direction from Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium), this is a film designed to feel like it could have been released a couple of years after the original Wake in Fright as a more schlocky knock-off of that great Aussie classic. The feeling of impotent frustration, being trapped with bizarre locals and deteriorating sense of reality are all very familiar but effective ways of keeping the tension high in films like these. The problem with The Surfer is, things go nuts so quickly we never really get a sense of who the Surfer actually is when he’s not descending a downward spiral. He seems pretty nutty from the opening scene and by the midpoint he’s gone bullgoose loony, which doesn’t leave the film with much room to progress beyond that point.
The Surfer then descends (or ascends, depending on which type of Cage vehicle you prefer) to high camp lunacy, which is certainly amusing but seems to abandon the more interesting film that this could have potentially been in the first 40 minutes or so. There’s plenty of chewy themes being explored here, mind you, ideas of toxic masculinity, the worship of conformity and even cults all get a look-in. It’s heady stuff, including an effectively menacing Julian McMahon as a kind of sunburned Aussie Andrew Tate. Nicolas Cage is, well, Nicolas Cage. He once again delivers an unhinged, over-the-top performance that is somehow effective and ridiculous at the same time. The supporting cast are also great, with many of the Bay Boys being legitimately creepy (props to Alexander Bertrand), a bent copper played by Justin Rosniak and the always welcome Miranda Tapsell in a small but important role.
Ultimately, however, The Surfer is a Nicolas Cage movie for all the good and ill that that entails. He chews the scenery with enthusiastic alacrity and for fans of his grunting, wild-eyed schtick, this will likely be manna from heaven. If you’re hoping for a subtle and nuanced exploration of the very themes the film raises in its opening, however? You’re probably going to want to surf a different beach.
