Starring Nicolas Cage, Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim, Miranda Tapsell

Directed by Lorcan Finnegan

Saturn Films, in cinemas now

A man returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. Humiliated by a group of locals, he is drawn into a conflict that pushes him to breaking point.

One of my favourite movies of 2021 consisted primarily of Nicolas Cage, as a reclusive chef living deep in the woods, having had his truffle-hunting porcine assistant stolen from him, visiting a sequence of dodgy types and growling threateningly: ‘I want my pig’. For much of the 99 minutes of The Surfer Mr Cage engages the same energy only with regard to the retrieval of his surfboard and his desire to ride the waves with his teenage son.

Put me in the dark of a cinema with Nic deprived of a thing he wants – stopping at nothing to get it – and basically I’m in my happy place.

His bête noir is Scally (Julian McMahon), the leader of a thuggish hedonistic surfer cult barring his way to paternal and surfing fulfilment. It’s a battle that sees Cage’s fortunes entirely upended in a brilliantly unsettling middle-act – a sort of fever dream of male existential evisceration.

Irish director Lorcan Finnegan is certainly putting it out there creating a surreal parable of toxic masculinity so it’s a tad disappointing when, in the final act Cage’s character (who is never named, simply listed in the credits as ‘The Surfer) becomes a bit player in someone else’s quest for bloody vengeance. Similarly, on a stylistic level, Finnegan excels at creating an unbearable claustrophobia around the dusty beach car park that Cage can never leave, but overplays his hand when it comes to the melodramatic use of 1970s style whip zooms and overblown close-ups.

Verdict: At its weakest, The Surfer is an incoherent, melodramatic revenge thriller. At its best it’s the Australian Irish American hallucinogenic surfer folk horror you never knew you needed to see. And it has Nicolas Cage going over the top – and a bit further. What’s not to like? 6/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com