The Surfer

 

 

Few living film actors do "crazy" with greater ease than Nicolas Cage.

In Irish indie director Lorcan Finnegan's The Surfer, Cage physically, mentally and emotionally unravels on the screen. He raves as the title character tries to get access to a local beach near his childhood home in Australia. He wants to surf the waves with his teen-aged son (Finn Little), and grows increasingly, well, Cage-y, as the film progresses.

Cage's unnamed character's quest is frustrated by a band of bully boys led by an oily shaman (Julian McMahon), who terrorize and drive out foreign visitors, and drives mad The Surfer and The Bum (Nicholas Cassim) living in his car on the rise above the beach after losing his son to the bully boys.

The film is pretty contained, the action limited to the environs of the bully boys' surf-side enclave and the parking lot just above. Cage's outsized personality fills the space but it doesn't make up for the noticeable lack of wave footage or actual surfing.

The ending unfolds predictably, but leaves one to wonder if taking the film in a different direction -- one that explored more deeply its psychological underpinnings -- would have been a better call.

As it is, the audience is left pondering if the delusion we had been riding stops at the shore or extends all the way to the horizon.