THE SURFER (2024)

Even if you’re not the biggest Nicolas Cage fan, you have to admire his work ethic. According to various sources, he’s appeared in close to 120 films. Sure, some of these are mediocre to bad (especially between 2009-17), but in recent times, most of Cage’s movies have been worth checking out. Ones that spring to mind include Mandy (2018), Pig (2021) and The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022). Fortunately, his latest, The Surfer, is another solid entry.

Set in the fictional Lunar Bay, on the south-western Australian coast, Cage is the eponymous surfer who has returned with his teenage son to where he grew up so that he can buy his old family home. The property deal has yet to be finalised: to secure the mortgage he needs to find an extra $100K in less than 24 hours. Cage’s unnamed character wants to take his son surfing so that he can surprise him with the perfect view of said property from the ocean. The only problem is that while on their way down to the beach, they meet a hostile group of local bullies who don’t appreciate their presence. “Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” shouts one. After dropping his son back home, Cage’s surfer drives back to the beach where he attempts to sort the financing out from the cosy air-conditioned confines of his car; however, he soon runs into mishap after mishap and, before long, starts to lose his sanity.

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan (Vivarium) takes what could have been a by-the-numbers thriller and turns it into an immensely watchable tale concerning themes of toxic masculinity, consumerism, and male midlife crisis – all fused together perfectly to resemble a twisty, trippy 1970s-era exploitation movie. Throughout The Surfer, Finnegan keeps pointing his wide-angle lens into Cage’s increasingly unhinged expression, as well as showing us plenty of icky sights such as a particularly unpleasant-looking public toilet that you can practically smell its odour mixing with the overbearing heat. There’s also a water tap that has dog excrement smeared all over it—a far cry from what you imagine an Aussie-set beach scene to be.

Cage is clearly enjoying himself immensely. Yes, his character does go a little bonkers by the time the film reaches its final act, but he never resorts to his ‘full Cage’ OTT acting that he was once famous for. Instead, his portrayal of a man on the edge who eventually falls off that edge is more subtle and thus painful to observe. To say his character is put through the grinder is an understatement; it’s almost like the unrelenting sun-scorched location is his own personal hell, and his journey through it to some form of redemption is long and fraught with pain and anguish coming at him from all sides.

As good as Cage is, there are other great performances that go some way to providing further dramatic heft to proceedings. Firstly, Australian actor Julian McMahon as Scally, the cult-like leader of the gang of goons, is all kinds of menacing with just the right amount of charisma thrown into the mix to make him all the more believable, instead of some one-dimensional moron. Then there’s Miranda Tapsell as the photographer who, despite her limited screen time, still impresses as someone who quietly wanders into Cage’s living nightmare and shows him a glimmer of humanity. Nic Cassim is also worth mentioning, as his homeless character looks and sounds like he’s been genuinely living in his broken-down car by the beach for years. The Surfer gives him an interesting arc too that leads to a memorable ending.

Thanks to a taut screenplay by writer Thomas Martin (Ripper Street) that doesn’t outstay its welcome with its lean 100-minute runtime, everything moves along with gripping efficiency. At no point did I start to get bored, and some of the even more absurd plot points are delivered with such precision and perfect timing that nothing seems out of place. Bizarre it may be, but that doesn’t matter because you’re hooked after 15-minutes and ready to ride out this oddball beast of a film to its crazy conclusion.

If you’ve seen the classic Aussie-set thriller Wake in Fright (1971), then you’ll likely see its influence cleverly woven into The Surfer. But this isn’t a lazy rehash, far from it. Writer Thomas Martin has somehow used that film’s thematic template of a man out of his depth in a hostile and challenging environment and brought it forward into a vaguely modern universe. I say vaguely, because there are only the cars and mobile phones that give away its contemporary setting. Everything else looks and feels like it was made decades ago: the score, how the film is shot, even down to its retro credits.

Aside from the acting, what shines throughout The Surfer is the eye-popping cinematography from Radek Ladczuk (The Nightingale). In shots that evoke Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019), Ladczuk shows off the stunningly beautiful Aussie scenery in all its oversaturated daylight glory but still manages to convey a sense of mounting dread. At one point he turns a heat-haze scene into some quasi hallucinogenic vision. It’s subtly done but made all the more effective because of it. Music composer François Tétaz (Elvis) puts in some stellar work too, with a jazz-infused score sometimes mixing with a trance-like soundscape that nicely echoes the waves of the ocean.

Some may find The Surfer to be a little too weird and extreme, at times, to fully get on board with, but for those looking for something other than the latest generic summer blockbuster, this is the perfect film to seek out. Kudos to Cage for taking on such an unusual B-movie-style feature, for while it’s decidedly non-mainstream in its subject matter and execution, the payoff with its ambiguous ending makes for a supremely satisfying and interesting viewing experience.

AUSTRALIA • USA • IRELAND • UK | 2024 | 100 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

director: Lorcan Finnegan.
writer: Thomas Martin.
starring: Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsell, Alexander Bertrand & Justin Rosniak.