Intentionally testing audience patience across its increasingly bizarre, tension-laced 100 minutes, Lorcan Finnegan‘s Australian thriller The Surfer is more about breaking points than Point Break as it mashes surfing culture localism and toxic masculinity.
Thomas Martin‘s script doesn’t give specific names to the majority of its players, instead referring to the film’s protagonist as simply The Surfer (Nicolas Cage, as committed to the material as you’d expect), a loving, if impulsive, father who has taken his son, The Kid (Finn Little), out of school for the day for an intended bonding session over the waves at an idyllic Australian coastal beach. Despite The Surfer’s American accent, he talks about growing up locally, and it’s his clear affection for the area that has driven him to purchase the cliffside house he grew up in, clearly intending to lay down his roots going forward.
The Surfer and The Kid’s day of expected beach bonding is turned on its axis when the local surfing clique, known as The Bay Boys (themselves inspired by the Californian terror surf gang The Lunada Bay Boys), threaten them, sprouting about “Locals only” and that if you “Don’t live here. Don’t surf here.” Out of context it sounds quite light and borderline silly, but the violent determination in which these surfers deliver such a command can’t help but frighten The Surfer and The Kid into temporary submission. The Bay Boys’ cult-like leader, Scally (Julian McMahon), steps in with a stern demeanour to remind The Surfer it’s in his best interest to back down, but The Surfer feeling just as much ownership to the area as the locals drives him to the brink of insanity as he buries his feet in the proverbial sand, bringing about a stand off of sorts that only escalates the further The Surfer tries to prove his worth.
Set around a few days across the Christmas period, The Surfer, as a character, holds onto the notion that, despite some financial hiccups, the approval of his house purchase will right any of the wrongs he comes to experience in his psychological battle with Scally and his cohorts. Losing his dignity and the majority of his possessions, The Surfer spirals downwards, which leads Martin’s trippy script to play with certain dynamics and character standings in a manner that has us, as gradually confused viewers, to determine how reliable a narrator Cage’s impassioned Surfer truly is.
Whether or not you fully jump on board its ultimate reveal remains for the individual, but you have to admire what Martin and Finnegan are saying with The Surfer‘s mentality around ownership and boyhood machismo. It’s an intentionally frustrating experience where the anger expressed on screen is mirrored in the viewer, and if you’re willing to submit to its true surrealism (which you almost have to expect from Cage at this point), you’ll be rewarded with a horrific character study that’s almost plays out like Wake–In–Fright-on-the-coast.
A descent into madness, with another fully embodied turn from the fearless Cage, The Surfer is a specific type of character-based thriller that enjoys its exasperating temperament. Much like Cage’s character is, you’ve been warned that this sun-bleached tale of paranoia is far from the lush escape its setting suggests.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Surfer is streaming on Stan Australia from June 15th, 2025.
