This low budget 2024 psychological thriller stars Nic Cage, currently on a career high run of indie film hits. The highlight of all that is with the excellent Dream Scenario (2023), where he’s on career best form.
The Surfer is a different beast entirely that starts off strong, but trails off after the 20 minute mark. However, we were intrigued by the concept that was inspired by Australia’s Lunada Bay Boys —a surfing gang in Palos Verdes of California. Thus, wait for it… SURF’S UP, DUDES!
Exploring Toxic Masculinity in The Surfer
Okay, so the plot begins when we meet The Surfer (Nic Cage) and his teenage son (Fin Little). The father has a surfing day planned, with an extra surprise being his plans of buying a beautiful house by the sea.
However, the attempts to bond with his son are soon thwarted. The house has a late bidder and he must find an extra $100,000.
Also, when he attempts to go out onto the waves, some very aggressive surfing localists threaten to beat him up. The surf gang leader Scally (Julian McMahon) warns him to back off and find somewhere else to surf. Incensed, The Surfer refuses to back down from the challenge and continuously attempts to head out onto the ocean.
The gang, however, rebuff his attempts and begin harassing him. Eventually stealing his surfboard, which the local law enforcement (part of the surf culture) start gaslighting him.
Some elements of this film remind us of the surrealist-action horror film Mandy (2018), in which Nic Cage is again on brilliant form. The Surfer sets itself up to follow in that fashion, with the above scene being the highlight of the movie for us.
For us, though, this all falls a bit flat.
The B movie concept then really just doesn’t go anywhere. At 100 minutes, much of The Surfer is spent in the car park by the beach and there are long sequences of Cage losing his mind, sense of sanity, and it all builds towards having to prove himself to the gang by suffering.
It’s an examination of toxic masculinity, it seems, but one that doesn’t explore it very much. Mainly it’s just Cage in a car park looking hungover and confused.
Plus, the film has a klunky, pretentious, unsatisfying conclusion. It could have worked very well as a 30-minute short, but it’s way too long and dull as a full feature concept. Although Nic Cage is on entertaining form, but he’s done much better recent work and you’d be better off watching one of those.
Unfortunate, then, as it’s obvious a lot of effort has gone in to making this film fun and engaging. But viewers will likely grow to hate that car park Cage’s character is in and the film’s inability to advance forward on its themes.
Notes on the Lunada Bay Boys
The Surfer did intrigue us with its inspiration. The Lunada Bay Boys are, apparently, America’s most notorious surf gang. Kind of like the Hell’s Angels of the waves.
The local is the fancy pants Palos Verdes Estates, a coastal city in Los Angeles.
They have a territorial approach to surfing, beating anyone up who doesn’t live by the specific beach. The usual sense of exceptionalism bollocks that’s the hallmark of entitled, obnoxious, probably pretty stupid people.
Ultimately, it’s just bullying and intimidation. For no reason other than to prop up their macho sensibilities and superiority complex.
“DON’T LIVE HERE!? DON’T SURF HERE!“
This group has been around since the 1930s and so has become something of a social status thing. There have been lawsuits regarding the Bay Boys based on harassment charges, which were settled in 2023/2024 with damages ranging between $35,000 and $90,000. Many of them have also agreed to not use the beach for a 12-month run.
Also, in September 2024 the city put signs up welcoming non-locals to the region and encouraging them to get out there and get surfing.
Some welcome news, anyway, in an otherwise hellscape of bad news cycles.
The Production of The Surfer
The film was shot in November 2023 in Yallingup, a town in the southwest region of Western Australia. There was a low budget to the film and it went on to make $2.1 million at the box office. The film wrapped in December 2023.
There’s very little surfing across the 100 minute run time and we only see Cage in the water at the end of the film. Director Lorcan Finnegan said of this in a recent interview:
“We had Nic, and it looks like he’s on the water, but actually, he’s on a Zumba ball I got from Zumba studio that morning. I think he was actually sick of getting in the water and afraid of sharks, because it was actually quite cold. So, we got the bits we needed, and then he’s sitting on this board and we used this silvery gel underneath and moved that around a water tank to bounce light back on his face and we sprayed water on his face while he was moving on the ball so it looks like he’s on the water. Then, as he turns to see the wave, because it’s a slo-mo shot at the same time as being a zoom, we lifted this blue gel in front of the camera so it feels like the light is going through the wave and creating a blueish shadow across his face. We reshot that about five times across different days.”
Elsewhere, Julian McMahon (star of Nip/Tuck) is the gang leader in this film.
What’s astonishing is he looks so healthy and handsome in this, trim and fit at 56. Unfortunately, he just died recently at 56—this was his final film role. He’s on good form in the role, though, and it’s a fine effort to go out on.
As we must note film critics have generally been full of praise for The Surfer, so for the sake of fair balance he’s a positive review of the film from Dr. Mark Kermode.
It also got a six-minute standing ovation at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Although what we know from that event is these ovations can sometimes go on for about 20 minutes, depending on the project, and doesn’t seem to denote whether a project is good or not.
Anyway, full marks for trying something different. It’s just a shame the script doesn’t know what to do across the mid chunk of its runtime.
