The Surfer

In the psychological thriller The Surfer, Nicolas Cage plays the role of a man who, after years of living in the United States, returns to his native village on the Australian coast to buy back his childhood home. Together with his son, he wants to surf there, but once he arrives at the beach, it turns out there is a new rule: You don't live here, you don't surf here. Here he comes into conflict with a group of aggressive, local surfers. What begins as an innocent situation gets completely out of hand. In front of his son he is humiliated and intimidated after which the situation becomes increasingly violent. The local surf scene, under the leadership of the ruthless Scally, appears to have turned into a violent cult, where toxic masculinity and brutal hazing rituals are the norm. As the battle escalates, the man becomes entangled in a psychological cat-and-mouse game in which his grip on reality becomes increasingly blurred.