The Surfer (2024)

The Surfer was a mystery screening at my local Showcase and this is the sixth mystery screening that I have attended and to be honest it is the worst. The premise of the film is that Nicholas Cage plays the titular Surfer who wants to buy a house with a view of the sea. At the start of the film he takes his son to the beach with the intention of showing him the house but they come across locals who say that the beach is for local people only and the film then becomes the locals making the surfers life a misery, things would happen that would go from bad to worse and everyone seemed to be a local. 

By the time the revelation comes about the surfer being broken down to see how badly he wants the house, I was completely bored and didn’t care. Had this happened 20 minutes earlier then I might have cared a bit more but the pacing was so bad that when something happened I was quite excited because I thought this might be the point when the film means something but then that moment quickly passed. Everytime that something bad happens to the surfer (and that is quite often), I just kept asking myself why he didn’t get back into his car and leave. Things would have worked out so much better for him if he had just left. 

There are two positives. The first is the location and it looks very stunning. Credit goes to Radek Ladczuk for making it look stunning and as the film progresses and Nicholas Cage gets more dehydrated the colours help create the impression even though there probably wasn't much acting going on in terms of getting dehydrated . The second positive was Miranda Tapsell who plays the photographer. She only has two scenes but she is the only person that is nice to Nic Cage. Even his son is not nice to him and sulks most of the time. 

This is the worst film I have seen at the cinema since Megalopolis and whilst it's not as bad as that film, this was hugely disappointing. If you are watching this film to see Nicholas Cage go full Nic Cage then you will be bitterly disappointed. I should have known that the film wasn’t going to be great because there were TEN company logos and you get to a stage where you think they are going to go on forever. That sums up the film perfectly, a film that feels like it goes on forever and isn’t worth it. I honestly think that I would have skipped this even if it when had arrived on streaming but sadly I spent money on this and I suppose the good run of mystery showings was going to go wrong at some point. Not worth your time.