I really didn't expect to like this movie. I've seen quite a few surfer flicks and while the ocean footage is always breathtaking, the story lines tend to be superficial at best. Still, I was interested enough in the synopsis to give it a try and I'm glad that I did.
The story is about Jesse, a young surfer with dreams of making it big. He faces some challenges, though, in the form of his older brother's legacy(and subsequent failure)/ aggressive jealousy and his own self-sabotaging ways. Jesse is pretty volatile and after a while you'll start to wonder how he even has any friends because he treats everyone like crap, especially his twin brother (I only deduced that they were twins at the end based on something Fergus said. It's never stated in the movie). His friends are douches in their own right but Jesse is in a league of his own. He is quite unlikable for the majority of the film.
My favourite characters would have to be the supportive grandfather, Fergus and Andy, the only nice one in Jesse's group. Although there's no real, in depth "gay romance", I still loved the moments that Fergus and Andy shared and I felt that the actors succeeded in building the idea of the "potential" the characters could have together with what little screen time they were allotted. I also liked the fact that neither was a stereotype, in the sense that Fergus, despite being "different" and constantly verbally abused, was confident and content in who he was and Andy was similarly confident and self-aware. There were no fem/masc roles, no closeted-bully/athlete situation. The way Andy revealed his interest in Fergus/men was very casual and no matter how many times his friends teased him about being nice to Fergus, suggesting that he might be gay as well, he never stopped being kind, never put up a front. After a while, I even started to suspect that they knew the attraction was mutual and didn't mind. Apart from Jesse, their teasing was really just that. Although I would have liked for there to have been a little more substance to their "relationship", it was nice to have it somewhat confirmed that they were together in the end. For as light as their storyline was, it was far better portrayed than a lot of legitimate LGBTQ films.
While I did enjoy the movie overall, even with the immature little boys and their shenanigans, my main issue with the film and having Jesse as the protagonist is that he is also the antagonist and he experiences very little development. He swears, shouts, and stomps his way through 3/4 of the film and it's only when his older brother/nemesis dies, from an accident that he technically caused, does he finally change, if you can even call it that. I found that to be a rather weak way to get him to stop being an ass. The "bigger" ass had to die for the little one to realize that there's more to life than surfing and that it wouldn't kill him to be nice to people. He never apologizes to Fergus or his friends for his past actions and in the end, he gets to be in the competition that was his goal from the very beginning. Sure, he's guilt-ridden, but it still felt like a cheap resolution and that he didn't deserve the happy ending he got. I would even go so far as to say that Victor, the brother that dies, showed more humanity in his final moments than Jesse did in the entire film, even after Victor's death, because he was looking out for Fergus at the time that Jesse pulled a dumb move that killed him and almost killed Andy.
This film isn't for everyone and like some of the other reviews stated, it may just be too plot-light to seem worth spending almost 2 hours watching, but for me at least it was enjoyable. Jesse aside, I genuinely liked the characters and the surfing is top-notch. I love the way the surfing styles seemed to fit the individual characters' personalities and every scene of the Australian land and seascape was just breath-taking. Once you get past the bratty teenage aspects, it's quite an enjoyable film.
The story is about Jesse, a young surfer with dreams of making it big. He faces some challenges, though, in the form of his older brother's legacy(and subsequent failure)/ aggressive jealousy and his own self-sabotaging ways. Jesse is pretty volatile and after a while you'll start to wonder how he even has any friends because he treats everyone like crap, especially his twin brother (I only deduced that they were twins at the end based on something Fergus said. It's never stated in the movie). His friends are douches in their own right but Jesse is in a league of his own. He is quite unlikable for the majority of the film.
My favourite characters would have to be the supportive grandfather, Fergus and Andy, the only nice one in Jesse's group. Although there's no real, in depth "gay romance", I still loved the moments that Fergus and Andy shared and I felt that the actors succeeded in building the idea of the "potential" the characters could have together with what little screen time they were allotted. I also liked the fact that neither was a stereotype, in the sense that Fergus, despite being "different" and constantly verbally abused, was confident and content in who he was and Andy was similarly confident and self-aware. There were no fem/masc roles, no closeted-bully/athlete situation. The way Andy revealed his interest in Fergus/men was very casual and no matter how many times his friends teased him about being nice to Fergus, suggesting that he might be gay as well, he never stopped being kind, never put up a front. After a while, I even started to suspect that they knew the attraction was mutual and didn't mind. Apart from Jesse, their teasing was really just that. Although I would have liked for there to have been a little more substance to their "relationship", it was nice to have it somewhat confirmed that they were together in the end. For as light as their storyline was, it was far better portrayed than a lot of legitimate LGBTQ films.
While I did enjoy the movie overall, even with the immature little boys and their shenanigans, my main issue with the film and having Jesse as the protagonist is that he is also the antagonist and he experiences very little development. He swears, shouts, and stomps his way through 3/4 of the film and it's only when his older brother/nemesis dies, from an accident that he technically caused, does he finally change, if you can even call it that. I found that to be a rather weak way to get him to stop being an ass. The "bigger" ass had to die for the little one to realize that there's more to life than surfing and that it wouldn't kill him to be nice to people. He never apologizes to Fergus or his friends for his past actions and in the end, he gets to be in the competition that was his goal from the very beginning. Sure, he's guilt-ridden, but it still felt like a cheap resolution and that he didn't deserve the happy ending he got. I would even go so far as to say that Victor, the brother that dies, showed more humanity in his final moments than Jesse did in the entire film, even after Victor's death, because he was looking out for Fergus at the time that Jesse pulled a dumb move that killed him and almost killed Andy.
This film isn't for everyone and like some of the other reviews stated, it may just be too plot-light to seem worth spending almost 2 hours watching, but for me at least it was enjoyable. Jesse aside, I genuinely liked the characters and the surfing is top-notch. I love the way the surfing styles seemed to fit the individual characters' personalities and every scene of the Australian land and seascape was just breath-taking. Once you get past the bratty teenage aspects, it's quite an enjoyable film.