The Surfer (2025)
Directed by: Lorcan Finnegan
Premise: An American (Nicolas Cage) returns to the Australian beach where he grew up. He finds the beach is controlled by an aggressive group of surfers who will not tolerate outsiders. Tensions escalate as he refuses the leave.
What Works: Nicolas Cage is known for playing unhinged characters. It’s a talent that has sometimes worked in Cage’s favor but at other times his performances descended into self-parody especially when the filmmakers didn’t know how to use Cage’s talent. The Surfer is one of the best uses of Nicolas Cage’s deranged shtick. The story is a slow burn of a man broken down by a barrage of assaults on his person, his wallet, and his dignity. Cage is in sync with the material. The story gives Cage the space and time to descend from a wealthy and respectable citizen to someone feral and desperate and Cage gauges his performance accordingly. The filmmaking works cooperatively with Cage’s performance. The way the film is shot and edited communicates the instability of the protagonist’s mental state and reveals the roots of his obsession and desperation. Insert shots provide clues to the backstory of Cage’s character without being too obvious about it, complicating our understanding of who he is and what he wants. The sound is also impressive. The music is unusual and the sound mix creates an unnerving aural atmosphere. The Surfer addresses a few intertwined ideas. It is partially about men trying to reclaim something they believe modern society has taken from them. Cage’s character tries to buy his childhood home while the surfer gang is a masculinity cult. This is a fascinating study of masculinity akin to American Psycho and Fight Club in the way it critiques the rhetoric of manhood. The image of the surfer and the culture of localism lend themselves well to this idea. The Surfer is also a paranoia thriller like 1973’s The Wicker Man and 1997’s The Game and the filmmakers successfully exploit the feelings of isolation and exposure.
What Doesn’t: The story of The Surfer doesn’t quite hold up under scrutiny. A series of events cause Nicolas Cage’s character to become stranded at the beach parking lot. His inability to move from the beach area and his dwindling resources drives the conflict. But the location is not remote. He’s within sight of a housing subdivision and presumably other societal resources that he could access just by walking away. The Surfer is involving enough that these logical flaws don’t nag at the viewer as the film is playing but they do become obvious in hindsight.
Bottom Line: Understood in its own specific way, The Surfer is an extraordinary character study. Everything in the movie fits together within a specific and self-contained story and The Surfer features a great performance by Nicolas Cage.
Episode: #1047 (May 11, 2025)