THE SURFER Review

Nicolas Cage movies are basically their own genre at this point. The chameleon-like actor continues taking weirder and weirder roles, as he fills his resume up with the kinds of projects he clearly has a passion for instead of the kind that have mass appeal. There is something to be said for a man with that kind of attitude towards his career.

In his most recent outing, The Surfer, Cage plays a... well, a surfer. A well-to-do man who is buying a 1.6 million dollar house and drives a Lexus, he starts the movie wanting to take his son surfing on the Australian beach near the home he intends to buy. He is thwarted, however, by the barbaric locals who insist, "Don't live here? Don't surf here!".

Cage's character and his son relent and leave the beach, and we slowly start seeing things aren't as rosy for the man as we might have imagined. His relationship with his son is strained, and his wife is pushing him to sign divorce papers. In Cage's mind, buying the house he grew up in now that it's on the market is the only thing that can save his family.

He returns to the parking lot outside the beach the next day to talk to his realtor, when he finds out another family has put a cash offer on the home he wants. Cage just has a few days to free up the capital to increase his bid to 1.7 million dollars. From there, as he works to save his bid on the home, his entire existence spirals out of control.

TWO UPS AND TWO DOWNS

+ For the first two acts, The Surfer can be quite haunting and really stick with you. You could be compelled to know what is going on and how it will end. I actually paused the movie midway through--we'll get to that in the Overall segment--and while I was away from the movie, I was thinking about the ramifications of what I had seen and how I would handle such matters. And also, I pondered where the story was going. What was Cage's character experiencing? Who was he, really? Where was the story going?

I'm not going to lie, though, these first two acts were still rough watches. The movie is upsetting for a number of reasons, a few of which were even intentional. There are moments that create discomfort in the viewer. So, to that end, the movie probably achieved its goal. Which is admirable! Though making it your goal to make an entertainment medium that makes its beholder uncomfortable is quite a risk.

+ Julian McMahon is solid as the over-testosterone’d antagonist who is making Cage’s character’s life hell. And, being Australian himself, he can even affect an Australian accent, which Cage never bothers to even try (they hand-wave this away by saying Cage moved to America as a child, but he was already at least 15 years old when that move happened, so I think he'd still have an accent; come on!).

But McMahon is sharp in his role. He comes across at various times as being vicious, but at other times as being cunning and sly. He is playing Cage almost the entire runtime, though, and he serves as an incredibly potent nemesis that Cage just can't get past. I did say that it's ALMOST the entire runtime, though. Because...

- The third act of this movie is somehow even worse than the two that came before it, as the mystery and hopelessness it builds is replaced with a bullshit resolution that then just gets somehow even stupider as the movie draws to a close. Obviously I won't be spoiling anything here because that's not what I do, but the third act is a damn enigma to me. Something happens, and all of the sudden you are convinced that--even in a nightmarishly dream-like movie--everything you are seeing at that point is definitely a dream. But... it's not. It's all legit. And that's befuddling.

It feels like an insult to the few things the first two acts did right when you have McMahon's character suddenly explaining the plot to Cage (and you), and it's... well, it's absurd. And the last bits of goodwill I had left for this movie were dragged out in the undertow.

- Nicolas Cage is the least sympathetic protagonist ever as a guy who, at least for most of the runtime, could solve all of his problems by simply fucking leaving. His decisions are bafflingly idiotic and every time he pushes just a little bit further or continues to inhabit the beach parking lot a little bit longer, every sensibility in your head will cry out for him to do anything but what he is doing. Just leave, character! You can just walk away from all of this!

But no. He doesn't. Because he is a fictional character in a bad screenplay, and he's not written to be realistic at any measure. Where any normal human being would not make the decisions he makes, Cage's character still makes them, and it's mind-achingly obvious there is a writer pulling his strings behind the scenes and forcing these illogical decisions upon him.

I've heard this movie described as a parable on toxic masculinity. And that's fine! It's fine. But the characters still need to behave realistically, or else you are making a sham out of the issue you are writing to address. I never, at any point, bought Cage's rationale (not that there is much, if any) for what he is doing. But he just kept doing it!

It's unlikely you or many others will dislike this movie as much as I did, but that's fine because I found the whole ordeal particularly abhorrent. I wrestled with giving this at least one star, but then I remembered I hated every minute of it. I mentioned earlier that I paused the movie near the end of the second act, and that was to go mow my lawn instead because at that point because I just needed break. The unrealistic decision making was killing me, and I just needed a reprieve from a frightfully poorly written film. It turns out, I can't even award this a full star; it's the worst mass release of 2025 I have seen so far.

🍿 SCORE = 15 / 100