The Surfer (2024)
Genre: Thriller
Duration: 100 minuten
Country:
Australia / Ireland
Directed by: Lorcan Finnegan
Stars: Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon and Nicholas Cassim
IMDb score:
5,9 (19.622)
Releasedate: 11 April 2025
The Surfer plot
"Don't live here, don't surf here."
After many years in the United States, a man returns to Australia to buy back his family home. There, he is humiliated by a group of local surfers in front of his teenage son as they claim ownership of the remote beach where he grew up. Wounded, he defies them and remains on the beach to demand acceptance. As the conflict escalates, the man is brought to the brink of his sanity and his identity is questioned.
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Actors and actresses
The Surfer
Scally
Cop
Pitbull
Conlon
The Bum
The Kid
Jenny
The Dog Walker
Runt 1
Reviews & comments
Mr Thee
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- 1589 messages
- 1213 votes
I quickly developed a slight dislike for the presentation of the lead role. What an annoying guy. Very American portrayed. But of course Cage went “all the way” and that nasty automatically became a wonderfully miserable fever dream. How the poisoned chalice would be emptied, that is what you as a spectator are waiting for. Strange but true. That has to happen before the lights go back on. And it was worth it: atmosphere, pace, characters make this story really captivating. The humor could not be missing!
#iffr2025
Translated from Dutch · View original
Woland
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- 4809 messages
- 3825 votes
Before you surf, you suffer.
Nicolas Cage has found a new niche in which he often goes wild in over-the-top, hallucinatory works. Sometimes it works (Colour out of Space, Mandy), sometimes not so much (Renfield, Willy's Wonderland), but I was still intrigued by this The Surfer. Missed it at IFFR, but now caught it in the cinema.
The Surfer is set in Australia, where Cage is living a bit in the past - he has a good job but his marriage is on the rocks, and he wants to buy the house on the coast where he was born to give his son the same surfing childhood he had. But when he tries to surf there with his son, he finds that he has not taken the locals into account. The local surf gang does not like outsiders. The Surfer starts off calmly but gradually descends into a feverish nightmare, where Cage has a rather obsessive nature. I also cannot really relate to him, in that he makes the most illogical choices step by step.
But the uncanny atmosphere, the images, and the resolution of the overall story work for me. I could also digest Cage here. A kind of surf version of Wake in Fright with an obsessiveness that reminds me of Fitzcarraldo, with a touch of delirium and psychedelics on top. I like this.
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
Finnegan gives this vehicle for Nicolas Cage a certain arthouse quality, but that is the only thing that distinguishes this from the many B-movies that Cage has been lending himself to for years. He plays a wealthy man who returns with his son [Finn Little] to the Australian beach where he spent part of his youth. The man immediately encounters opposition from a group of surfers who seem to be part of a cult led by Scally [Julian McMahon] that is focused on encouraging masculinity under the motto “surfer, suffer”. There is an older, apparently homeless man [Nicholas Cassim], a woman [Nina Young] who regularly walks her dog in the area around the beach, a photographer [Miranda Tapsell], a pizza seller [Tyren Maclou] and a cop [Justin Rosniak] who does nothing about the transgressive behavior of 'The Locals'. Cage is allowed to let go of the brakes to give shape to the physical and mental decline of his character, which may be related to an incident from his youth. Starts promisingly, but loses its way halfway and ends in a tangle of vague, half-developed ideas. A mediocre mix of elements Fight Club and Falling Down. High time to dig out those films again.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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