Reviews: THE SURFER and FIGHT OR FLIGHT

By Rob DiCristino

Cage. Hartnett. Cinema.

The Surfer (Dir. Lorcan Finnegan)

We’re in such a great age of Nicolas Cage. A great Cage Age, if you will (and you should!). After forty years of evolution from leading man to DTV workhorse to indie darling, Cage is now in true wild card territory. Each new title is a roll of the dice: Mandy and 211 came out within a few months of each other. As did Pig and Grand Isle. Dream Scenario and The Retirement Plan. You just never know what you’re going to get! Not all of these projects work, but we can always count on Cage to treat each one as an opportunity. That’s great news for Vivarium director Lorcan Finnegan, whose sunburnt noir The Surfer requires an actor with Cage’s, well, let’s say “panache.” The psychedelic odyssey of an Australia-born, California-raised businessman (Cage, credited only as “the Surfer”) who returns to the land of Oz to purchase his ancestral home, The Surfer is the exact flavor of phantasmagoria that Cage can make into a feast for the senses, even if its message about riding life’s turbulent waves never quite comes together.

Arriving at the property just before they expect to take ownership, The Surfer and his estranged son (Finn Little) take a jaunt down to a nearby beach to catch some waves and reconnect. They’re quickly intercepted by a group of alphas led by Scally (Julian McMahon), who insists that the beach is for his “Bay Boys” only. Scally is some kind of men’s rights guru whose creatine-poisoned acolytes hold power over the local authorities, and this initial confrontation sets off a chain of events that eventually spins our Surfer into madness. First, they steal his surfboard. Then, he’s forced to barter away his phone and watch. Soon, his BMW is gone, leaving him as rambling and destitute as the crazy old bum (Nic Cassim) whom the Bay Boys kick around for sport. Why doesn’t he just leave? Well, justice, for one thing. Propriety, another. But this beach also holds great personal significance to the Surfer, and as Finnegan’s acid trip of a narrative unfolds, it reveals memories of past traumas that threaten to trap him there for the rest of time.

And while mysteries may abound, The Surfer is light on revelation, so it’s probably best not to ask too many questions. Maybe Cage’s character is imagining all this. Maybe he’s actually the bum. Maybe he’s actually his father. Is Scally a god? Are the local cops in on his schemes? There’s plenty to parse, but if epic battles between a bug-eyed Nicolas Cage and the vicious rats occupying the nearby garbage cans aren’t enough to distract you from all that ephemera — especially through the lenses of Radzek Ladczuk’s heat-stroked camera — then The Surfer probably won’t hold your attention long enough for it to matter. Screenwriter Thomas Martin cites Cheever’s The Swimmer (and the Burt Lancaster film adaptation of the same name) as inspiration in the press notes, as both stories take an accusatory stance toward brash masculinity. I wouldn’t get too wrapped up in the literary allusions, though. No, The Surfer is best enjoyed as a watercolor fantasy, a surreal dream from which you’re still not sure you’ve woken up.

The Surfer is in U.S. theaters now.

Fight or Flight (Dir. James Madigan)

Speaking of movie star reclamation projects: Hasn’t it been fun seeing Josh Hartnett again? Sure, he’s always been around if you knew where to look — Wrath of Man hive, rise up — but it feels like the one-two punch of Oppenheimer and Trap has finally codified his transition from 2000s poster boy to genre movie darling. Like Brad Pitt and even Nicolas Cage before him, Hartnett’s always been a little stiff and uncomfortable in those heartthrob roles, anyway, so it feels right that he should capitalize on the goodwill he earned from Trap with something as balls-to-the-wall as Fight or Flight, the feature debut of longtime visual effects artist James Madigan. A “plane-full-of-hitmen” Die Hard descendent shot with predictable reverence to Guy Ritchie and David Leitch, Fight or Flight is a perfect vehicle for Hartnett’s revitalized image, an action/comedy just self-aware enough to be charming, just violent enough to be engaging, and just well-crafted enough not to feel like it came out of the bottom row of the local Redbox (RIP).

Two years after his career in the U.S. Secret Service was cut short by a devastating betrayal, Lucas Reyes (Hartnett) wakes from a drunken stupor to find himself once again in the reluctant employ of his government handler/ex-girlfriend (Katee Sackhoff as Katherine). His mission? Board a flight from Bangkok to San Francisco and apprehend the Ghost, an international hacker/all-purpose agent of chaos whose identity remains a mystery to the world’s elite powers-that-be. Sounds easy enough on paper. The catch? The flight is packed solid with assassins hoping to bring the Ghost down for their own nefarious purposes. Teaming up with a plucky flight attendant (Charitha Chandran as Isha) who’s keeping a few secrets of her own — I bet you can guess what they are! — Lucas must find the Ghost, protect them from a plane full of killers, keep said plane in the air, and fight off a brutal hangover long enough for Katherine and her team (led by Julian Kostov’s Aaron) to clear his good name once and for all.

There’s nothing in Fight or Flight innovative enough to wow the better-schooled Heavy Action aficionados out there, but it’s competent enough to distinguish it from the Bullet Trains and Beekeepers of modern action cinema, sitting somewhere in a tier above Carry-On and below Rebel Ridge. Its humor is juvenile but not repulsive — its early reliance on the f-bomb actually pays off in a clever twist that reveals a few characters’ true allegiances — and Madigan’s crafty staging keeps the fight scenes fluid and lively in the constricted setting. Genre legend Sackhoff plays a fine stuffed shirt, and Bridgerton alum Chandran brings a little pathos to the late-going that raises the stakes without getting too sanctimonious. We’re all here for Hartnett, though, and the real joy of Fight or Flight is watching him ride a delightful line between John McClane and Jack Burton. Lucas is good at a job he basically hates, and Fight or Flight wisely declines to argue that he wouldn’t be better off having another round in his favorite Bangkok dive bar.

Fight or Flight hits U.S. theaters this Friday, May 9th.