"The Surfer" - Review

A man (Nicolas Fucking Cage) moves back to his childhood home in Australia, hoping to buy it and relive his surfing days on a picturesque beach with his son (Finn Little) and ride the waves. Unfortunately a possessive hyper-masculine local big shot named Scally (Julian McMahon) and his insular tribe of toxic lunatics aim to drive away any non-locals from the spot, and a war of wills and ever-spiralling madness escalate as macho meets morality and our surfer loses himself in the outback.

A 70s inspired psychological mind bender (right from the font of the bright yellow font of the opening credits) very much taking a few leaves from the blood and fluid spattered book of "Wake in Fright" as Nicolas Cage is put through the wringer and brought to his lowest depths. It's impeccably made, with sweltering scorching heat and wide angle fish eye lenses as reality distorts, and it morphs into a beast discussing masculinity and the feral, primal urges of onsters which society simply lets happen, and how it gives way to cult like behaviour. It's not for me (and indeed, "Wake in Fright" is the sort of movie I watch once and say "yup, not for me as great as it is!") but has a lot to love. If you're here for the Nic Cage madness/memes, it's relatively restrained in that regard (outside of him force-feeding a man a rat) and instead focuses on a damn good performance from him. The "Straw Dogs"-esque catharsis is never quite there, and it's never as bleak as something like that, but the film works tightly. It could lose the "missing identity, gaslighting into believing you're that other guy" plotline and could honestly have been tighter without it, but works with it regardless.