Nicolas Cage and Julian McMahon are terrific in this atmospheric Australian thriller.
PLOT: A middle-aged businessman (Nicolas Cage) returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to reconnect with his son and Australian roots. However, he discovers that the beach is now dominated by a local surf gang, who refuse to let non-locals hit the waves.
REVIEW: Australian cinema has a long history of psychological dramas that probe the psyche of the Aussie male. North American audiences have always been somewhat taken with the stereotypical macho Australian. For proof, one need only note their outsized impact on the film industry, with many of the biggest stars being of Australian descent, like Mel Gibson, Hugh Jackman, Chris Hemsworth, Russell Crowe, and many others. Yet, as much as they seem to celebrate their rough and tumble nature, their movies have always been more introspective about such things, and director Lorcan Finnegan’s The Surfer fits into that mould.
Like the Aussie New Wave classic, Wake in Fright, The Surfer follows an outsider’s entry into a highly tribalized community. While Nicolas Cage’s unnamed surfer is supposed to have grown up in the area, he’s shed any giveaways of his former identity. It’s clearly a deliberate choice to have the very American Cage play the role without any hint of an Australian accent, and he’s made up to look very different from the suntanned, young, macho surfers he runs afoul of.
In Finnegan’s film, our ritual character slowly gets stripped of all the elements that connect him to his former life over the course of the film, starting with his fancy Lexus, his cell phone, his wedding ring, his watch, and even – eventually – his sanity. It gets to the point that you even start to question what the reality of the film is, with Cage excellent at depicting a man slowly reverting to a different kind of existence. He’s always been maximalist in his approach to characterization (when it calls for it – he can also be brilliantly introspective – like in Pig), and this is one of his bigger performances, although he pulls back when necessary. Even still, there are some gnarly Cage scenes, such as when he gnaws at a rat’s corpse and succumbs to depravity.
The movie also benefits greatly from the presence of former Nip/Tuck star Julian McMahon, who returns to his Australian roots as Scally, the kind of pseudo patriarch of the surf hooligans. He advocates to his followers that, to be a man, you also need to learn to suffer, with his followers constantly chanting “surf…suffer” over and over. McMahon cuts a dynamic figure here, with him wearing a striking red robe and seeming the picture-perfect ideal of the macho Australian male.
Finnegan’s movie also detours into psychedelia, with the gorgeous, sun-kissed visuals by Radzek Ladczuk getting trippier as the film goes on. The beach our hero wants to surf is portrayed as otherworldly in its beauty, even if the community of alphas that rule it are anything but inviting. Notably, one of the few people to show the surfer any kindness is a photographer with Aboriginal roots (The Sapphires’s star Miranda Tapsell).
While The Surfer does go off the rails a bit in its final act, which drops the film’s surreal side and devolves into a more conventional thriller, it’s still an interesting watch. The chemistry between Cage and McMahon is especially absorbing, and it should find plenty of fans when Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate put it out later this spring.
