An unhinged Nicolas Cage takes to the beach in this surreal trip

The Advertiser

16-05-2025

The Surfer (MA, 103 minutes)
4 stars
You wanna make a wacked-out psychotropic trip of a movie, who you gonna call?
Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan shot his film The Surfer in the sand dunes of Perth's beach suburbs and has none other than the kookiest of today's working actors, Nicolas Cage, in the 0lead.
I'm totally here for it, as Cage's special kind of unhinged works perfectly for a film that feels like Point Break meets Wake in Fright.
Cage plays a man, we don't learn his name, returned to his hometown in Australia from a lifetime living in America, just wanting to share the joys of surfing the local breaks with his teenage son (Finn Little).
He has plans to buy his old family home that has come back on the market too, but one by one his plans are dashed before his eyes.
A bunch of surfie thugs led by the grizzled Scally (Julian McMahon) tell the father and son that the beach is for locals only and intimidate them back to the car park, where the man's ex-wife calls to demand the son come home.
Coming back to the beach later that day in his Lexus, with his work suit a little dishevelled, the man spends the afternoon on the phone to the estate agent selling his old family home (Rahel Romahn) and a finance company, trying to huckster cash to buy the house.
His desperation is palpable, his dream of the beach home restoring a lost job and a broken marriage a disappearing illusion, and as the summer sun beats down, it seems there is more to lose.
The surfer thugs continue to intimidate every visitor to the beach, especially an old man (Nicholas Cassim) who claims they have killed his son and dog.
As days go by, the man is drawn to the very edge of his sanity, taunted by the surfers and feeling like everybody he meets is against him.
It's an interesting concept that screenwriter Thomas Martin proposes for a low-budget film, the setting across five days not straying too far from a beach car park.
But the film doesn't feel cheap and Martin's screenplay is a fascinating thought-piece into a modern masculinised culture fed by the Joe Rogans and Andrew Tates, of domination and performative brutalisation.
And it also feels, as the sweat pours through Cage's orange Cheeto dust makeup, like a beautiful homage to Australian horror like the brutal Wake in Fright.
There's a lot of Turkish dentistry going on in this film, I should say allegedly, with Cage and McMahon sporting fiercely white choppers that interestingly give some kind of backstory to these two international figures that find themselves squaring off on a Western Australian beach.
Julian McMahon could almost be playing Patrick Swayze's Bodhi character from Point Break, a charismatic and physical surfer king leading loyal disciples.
He holds focus even against Cage who is just bonkers, but good bonkers. Nobody Cages like Cage Cages.
This posse of apparent bad guys who intimidate visitors with their "Don't live here, don't surf here" mantra have their own stories, and its the kind of nonsense I keep getting ads and infomercials for on my feeds.
Lorcan Finnegan directs with a frenzy at times, plenty of movement to his camera, plenty of lens flare reinforcing the acid trip impression, probably just trying to keep up with Cage and hoping it all works.
It does; it's the kind of film, if I had a cinema of my own, I would be programming for late late shows.
It's perfect for the smoke-affected university students who stay up for these kids of things.
The Surfer (MA, 103 minutes)
4 stars
You wanna make a wacked-out psychotropic trip of a movie, who you gonna call?
Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan shot his film The Surfer in the sand dunes of Perth's beach suburbs and has none other than the kookiest of today's working actors, Nicolas Cage, in the 0lead.
I'm totally here for it, as Cage's special kind of unhinged works perfectly for a film that feels like Point Break meets Wake in Fright.
Cage plays a man, we don't learn his name, returned to his hometown in Australia from a lifetime living in America, just wanting to share the joys of surfing the local breaks with his teenage son (Finn Little).
He has plans to buy his old family home that has come back on the market too, but one by one his plans are dashed before his eyes.
A bunch of surfie thugs led by the grizzled Scally (Julian McMahon) tell the father and son that the beach is for locals only and intimidate them back to the car park, where the man's ex-wife calls to demand the son come home.
Coming back to the beach later that day in his Lexus, with his work suit a little dishevelled, the man spends the afternoon on the phone to the estate agent selling his old family home (Rahel Romahn) and a finance company, trying to huckster cash to buy the house.
His desperation is palpable, his dream of the beach home restoring a lost job and a broken marriage a disappearing illusion, and as the summer sun beats down, it seems there is more to lose.
The surfer thugs continue to intimidate every visitor to the beach, especially an old man (Nicholas Cassim) who claims they have killed his son and dog.
As days go by, the man is drawn to the very edge of his sanity, taunted by the surfers and feeling like everybody he meets is against him.
It's an interesting concept that screenwriter Thomas Martin proposes for a low-budget film, the setting across five days not straying too far from a beach car park.
But the film doesn't feel cheap and Martin's screenplay is a fascinating thought-piece into a modern masculinised culture fed by the Joe Rogans and Andrew Tates, of domination and performative brutalisation.
And it also feels, as the sweat pours through Cage's orange Cheeto dust makeup, like a beautiful homage to Australian horror like the brutal Wake in Fright.
There's a lot of Turkish dentistry going on in this film, I should say allegedly, with Cage and McMahon sporting fiercely white choppers that interestingly give some kind of backstory to these two international figures that find themselves squaring off on a Western Australian beach.
Julian McMahon could almost be playing Patrick Swayze's Bodhi character from Point Break, a charismatic and physical surfer king leading loyal disciples.
He holds focus even against Cage who is just bonkers, but good bonkers. Nobody Cages like Cage Cages.
This posse of apparent bad guys who intimidate visitors with their "Don't live here, don't surf here" mantra have their own stories, and its the kind of nonsense I keep getting ads and infomercials for on my feeds.
Lorcan Finnegan directs with a frenzy at times, plenty of movement to his camera, plenty of lens flare reinforcing the acid trip impression, probably just trying to keep up with Cage and hoping it all works.
It does; it's the kind of film, if I had a cinema of my own, I would be programming for late late shows.
It's perfect for the smoke-affected university students who stay up for these kids of things.
The Surfer (MA, 103 minutes)
4 stars
You wanna make a wacked-out psychotropic trip of a movie, who you gonna call?
Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan shot his film The Surfer in the sand dunes of Perth's beach suburbs and has none other than the kookiest of today's working actors, Nicolas Cage, in the 0lead.
I'm totally here for it, as Cage's special kind of unhinged works perfectly for a film that feels like Point Break meets Wake in Fright.
Cage plays a man, we don't learn his name, returned to his hometown in Australia from a lifetime living in America, just wanting to share the joys of surfing the local breaks with his teenage son (Finn Little).
He has plans to buy his old family home that has come back on the market too, but one by one his plans are dashed before his eyes.
A bunch of surfie thugs led by the grizzled Scally (Julian McMahon) tell the father and son that the beach is for locals only and intimidate them back to the car park, where the man's ex-wife calls to demand the son come home.
Coming back to the beach later that day in his Lexus, with his work suit a little dishevelled, the man spends the afternoon on the phone to the estate agent selling his old family home (Rahel Romahn) and a finance company, trying to huckster cash to buy the house.
His desperation is palpable, his dream of the beach home restoring a lost job and a broken marriage a disappearing illusion, and as the summer sun beats down, it seems there is more to lose.
The surfer thugs continue to intimidate every visitor to the beach, especially an old man (Nicholas Cassim) who claims they have killed his son and dog.
As days go by, the man is drawn to the very edge of his sanity, taunted by the surfers and feeling like everybody he meets is against him.
It's an interesting concept that screenwriter Thomas Martin proposes for a low-budget film, the setting across five days not straying too far from a beach car park.
But the film doesn't feel cheap and Martin's screenplay is a fascinating thought-piece into a modern masculinised culture fed by the Joe Rogans and Andrew Tates, of domination and performative brutalisation.
And it also feels, as the sweat pours through Cage's orange Cheeto dust makeup, like a beautiful homage to Australian horror like the brutal Wake in Fright.
There's a lot of Turkish dentistry going on in this film, I should say allegedly, with Cage and McMahon sporting fiercely white choppers that interestingly give some kind of backstory to these two international figures that find themselves squaring off on a Western Australian beach.
Julian McMahon could almost be playing Patrick Swayze's Bodhi character from Point Break, a charismatic and physical surfer king leading loyal disciples.
He holds focus even against Cage who is just bonkers, but good bonkers. Nobody Cages like Cage Cages.
This posse of apparent bad guys who intimidate visitors with their "Don't live here, don't surf here" mantra have their own stories, and its the kind of nonsense I keep getting ads and infomercials for on my feeds.
Lorcan Finnegan directs with a frenzy at times, plenty of movement to his camera, plenty of lens flare reinforcing the acid trip impression, probably just trying to keep up with Cage and hoping it all works.
It does; it's the kind of film, if I had a cinema of my own, I would be programming for late late shows.
It's perfect for the smoke-affected university students who stay up for these kids of things.
The Surfer (MA, 103 minutes)
4 stars
You wanna make a wacked-out psychotropic trip of a movie, who you gonna call?
Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan shot his film The Surfer in the sand dunes of Perth's beach suburbs and has none other than the kookiest of today's working actors, Nicolas Cage, in the 0lead.
I'm totally here for it, as Cage's special kind of unhinged works perfectly for a film that feels like Point Break meets Wake in Fright.
Cage plays a man, we don't learn his name, returned to his hometown in Australia from a lifetime living in America, just wanting to share the joys of surfing the local breaks with his teenage son (Finn Little).
He has plans to buy his old family home that has come back on the market too, but one by one his plans are dashed before his eyes.
A bunch of surfie thugs led by the grizzled Scally (Julian McMahon) tell the father and son that the beach is for locals only and intimidate them back to the car park, where the man's ex-wife calls to demand the son come home.
Coming back to the beach later that day in his Lexus, with his work suit a little dishevelled, the man spends the afternoon on the phone to the estate agent selling his old family home (Rahel Romahn) and a finance company, trying to huckster cash to buy the house.
His desperation is palpable, his dream of the beach home restoring a lost job and a broken marriage a disappearing illusion, and as the summer sun beats down, it seems there is more to lose.
The surfer thugs continue to intimidate every visitor to the beach, especially an old man (Nicholas Cassim) who claims they have killed his son and dog.
As days go by, the man is drawn to the very edge of his sanity, taunted by the surfers and feeling like everybody he meets is against him.
It's an interesting concept that screenwriter Thomas Martin proposes for a low-budget film, the setting across five days not straying too far from a beach car park.
But the film doesn't feel cheap and Martin's screenplay is a fascinating thought-piece into a modern masculinised culture fed by the Joe Rogans and Andrew Tates, of domination and performative brutalisation.
And it also feels, as the sweat pours through Cage's orange Cheeto dust makeup, like a beautiful homage to Australian horror like the brutal Wake in Fright.
There's a lot of Turkish dentistry going on in this film, I should say allegedly, with Cage and McMahon sporting fiercely white choppers that interestingly give some kind of backstory to these two international figures that find themselves squaring off on a Western Australian beach.
Julian McMahon could almost be playing Patrick Swayze's Bodhi character from Point Break, a charismatic and physical surfer king leading loyal disciples.
He holds focus even against Cage who is just bonkers, but good bonkers. Nobody Cages like Cage Cages.
This posse of apparent bad guys who intimidate visitors with their "Don't live here, don't surf here" mantra have their own stories, and its the kind of nonsense I keep getting ads and infomercials for on my feeds.
Lorcan Finnegan directs with a frenzy at times, plenty of movement to his camera, plenty of lens flare reinforcing the acid trip impression, probably just trying to keep up with Cage and hoping it all works.
It does; it's the kind of film, if I had a cinema of my own, I would be programming for late late shows.
It's perfect for the smoke-affected university students who stay up for these kids of things.