Read @ Joe’s

Title: The Surfer (2024) Director: Lorcan Finnegan Writer: Thomas Martin Studio: Lionsgate // Roadside Attractions // ScreenWest IMDb Plot: A man returns to the idyllic beach of his childhood to surf with his son. When he is humiliated by a group of locals, the man is drawn into a conflict that keeps rising and pushes him to his breaking point. Joe Says: The Surfer is another indie nutso Nicolas Cage movie — endearingly odd, pretentiously enjoyable, and altogether head-shakingly crazy.

The Surfer is another indie nutso Nicolas Cage movie — endearingly odd, pretentiously enjoyable, and altogether head-shakingly crazy. Like many Nic Cage projects, this one comfortably sits in the middle of the Venn diagram labeled: “You Paid Money for This?” and “Films I Need in My Life.” Madcap, grating, and narratively soft around the edges, Cage acts through a full-blown mid-life crisis that is both wildly unhinged and disturbingly relatable. It’s weird. It’s wild. It’s debatably good. But you’re going to watch it anyway, because it’s Nicolas Cage once again flailing through an existential meltdown oblivious of the upcoming wipeout. 

Cage plays the singularly-named Surfer who returns to Luna Bay, Australia, with a spiritual — and manic — need to buy the cliff-top home his father once owned. He wishes to move in with his teenage son, reclaim his past, and maybe, just maybe, catch a Christmas Day wave like an ecclesiastic Laird Hamilton. Unfortunately, Luna Bay is guarded by the Bay Boys — a gang of sunbaked locals led by the scowling Scally (Julian McMahon), who enforce a “locals only” policy with the grace of high school bullies and the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Their beach, their rules, and Nic Cage is not on the guest list. Even worse? The bidding price on the real estate has also escalated into an orbital ask compounding the Surfer’s anxiety and woe.

Like Michael Douglas’ character in the essential mid-life crisis movie of the 90s, Falling Down, Cage wants to bring order to what he sees as chaos. The Surfer refuses to back down and spirals into his own declarative catastrophe. He challenges the Bay Boys — Curly, Pitbull, and Blondie (yes, this is the kind of movie where only the villains have full character names) — in scenes that range from tense to surreal to unintentionally hilarious. They are young and sun-kissed and full of raging, chemically-enhanced emotions. Even the local cop (Justin Rosniak), is a badge-carrying bro whose allegiance to Team Scally has already been cashed in. Cage’s Surfer falls into deep hysteria. He will pay for, and give up, nearly everything to fuel his mania. And each payment becomes more ridiculously costly than the last. 

Directed by Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan, The Surfer is visually hypnotic — a sandy fever dream of striking, saturated colors, and ominous wildlife lurking around like metaphors with sharp teeth. The contrast between the coastal paradise and Cage’s sweaty unraveling is stark and intentional. As the Surfer descends into obsession, the visuals grow hotter, angrier — all scorched oranges and reds — while the unreachable ocean below remains cool, blue, and indifferent.

Thomas Martin’s script is heavy on metaphor — aging, masculinity, alienation, legacy, death — it’s all here, swirling like eddies, but never quite crashing into the sand. The film flirts and teases but never commits with a kiss. At times the film feels like it wants to be a high religious allegory but ultimately it belly-flops into parody. Cage transforms from concerned father to bug-eyed beach rat, channeling the same manic magic seen in Mandy, Renfield, or Leaving Las Vegas. And interestingly, all three of those movies are character studies of flawed men flailing against the tide, all with their own narrative drift.

In the end, Cage’s Surfer wants a Christmas miracle but suffers a Lenten passion. The Surfer is entertaining, absurd, and weirdly fascinating, but it asks a lot for a payoff that never quite catches the wave. Rather, it faceplants into the sand and stays there, twitching. You might not love it, but you’ll never forget it. Just maybe bring along a life vest of your choosing.