When you cast Nic Cage in a role, you’re going to get Nic Cage. And Lorcan Finnegan’s sun-soaked psychedelic thriller, The Surfer, makes no bones about that. Cage is as big as Cage can get, starring as a nameless man who gets slowly broken down mentally by a group of alpha-male surfers who rule a “locals only” beach on the coast of Australia.
But Cage doesn’t just see his role in The Surfer as part of a long line of over-the-top performances that have turned him into a cinematic icon. There’s an arc to this nameless Surfer, who starts the film as a suited businessman and ends as a foaming-at-the-mouth vandal.
