Surfer, Dude (2008)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Gotta say I really liked it. A man trying to live his life on his own terms and holding strong to his unique kind of integrity. I guess our hero is kinda the last hippie. His life is totally opposite the lives of most of us. He surfs, and never works. Thing is, he is so cool that others find ways to make money off his adventures and his athletic prowess. He doesn't care, he just wants to surf. Finally the forces of commercialism and responsibility begin to close in. Ironically, this occurs at a time when the ocean stops making waves. Surfer Dudes world begins to crash down but he refuses to surrender.This film reminded me of the Camus novel called the Stranger. If one refuses to conform or simply doesn't get conformity...prepare for a lot of love/hate relationships with others. Society can take only so much individual freedom before it eats its own. This isn't a great movie but its a very good one for people who sometimes wonder wtf its all about anyhow. This is more like a good novel than a Hollywood movie. Twelve year olds and people with that mentality have no chance of understanding or enjoying.

This movie is awesome in that you absolutely fail to get its point. Arguably, it was meant to have none, but then, why would anyone want to watch it? It's definitely not about surfing, there's hardly any surfing in it. There is a lot of weed smoking instead, but that is somehow out of focus: it's not about weed smoking either. It's not about life, it's not about just chilling, it's not about sports becoming something perverted by advertising, it's not about media manipulation, it's not about goats or ecological agriculture, it has no point. You can only wonder at the waste of resources involved in producing it. That money could have gone anywhere from helping starving kids in Africa to improving ice rinks in Spain, and for the better!There's not a scene in it that would qualify as comedy. It doesn't really belong to that category. Instead, one could create a "surfer, dude" film genre and dump this one in it. Forget the so-called plot, this movie's best summary is "Matthew McConaughey half-naked sells". Mind boggles: did they actually have to make a movie to prove it?

I mean what can I say, it's a flop, but so many good movies are flops. It has a bunch of B-rated actors, one A-list star, and Willie Nelson. Honestly I don't get why people don't like this movie...maybe because it lacks flash and boom boom pow. But for those of you on the fence about this film, just watch it, rent it, download it, whatever, at least decide on your own. True enough this is a stoner movie, because it's full of stoners, or even for those who are just wanting to watch something that won't make you feel bad about the white supremacy, or how corrupt the modern world is, or how we should go green, and it doesn't have major budget high flying, heart wrenching romance. and let's face it, that's what most movies are today.The movie runs a little under an hour and half and the storyline really doesn't go anywhere but you find yourself admiring the main character, Steve Addington, a slacker surfer bum who only wants to surf and chill with his buds and smoke bud. I mean that's all the movie is and that's all it needs to be. Granted the movie is funny, it has boobs, and it has a 'summer love' fling thing going on and it's just an all around calm, laid-back kind of feel to it.If you want flash, glam, big explosions, multi million dollar CGI effects...go somewhere else, go watch transformers 2 or GI Joe. If you want to just entertain yourself with a laid-back, calm and easy film, then by all means watch this film, I'll lend you my copy, cause you ain't gonna find it in wal-mart, believe I looked...What I am basically trying to say is this movie isn't going anywhere and it's not trying to, it's just there to be there and I think it's worth a watch, at least once. Me on the other hand I love this movie and I can't get enough of it. So go out and buy it, download it, rent it, steal it or whatever just watch it, then decide.

Here is this movie and here I am, someone who liked it. A movie which got huge slaps in the face by critics pointing that this isn't more than something stoners would make for other stoners; and myself who never touched weed or any drugs.Even so, I liked Surfer, Dude. Better to say: I loved it. Because it helped me rethink what is important in life and what isn't.The main character (Addington) represents everything that people living in the cage of the consumer / mass society can only dream about, or should be dreaming about.He is the free man, part of and living with nature. Not a 9 to 5 office worker like the most of us, not someone having only twenty-some days off a year. Not working for the profit (which actually goes to other one's pocket), he is living for living, enjoying life, experiencing the mystery or magic of nature.There is a big contrast in the movie. The artificial vs the real. The video game and reality show versus the real surfing and life under the sun. Inside and outside.Addington is like a creature from another world, but at the end of the film it feels like he is the one from planet Earth (with the goat shepherd and the fisherman) and on the other hand we who made the fields chessboard looking, made the trees stand in order and in the exact same distance from each other in the forest, we are the aliens, or robots. He is the relaxed one we are the frustrated ones. He does only the positive things, and none of the negative ones, not even for money. "Not feelin' it. Not into it". This thing is double stated with the soul/Seoul people scene after the cast, at the very end of the movie.Actually I recommend Surfer, Dude for those, who feel frustrated after work or feel like there is more to life than doing overtime for surplus production.Yes the plot is simple, but has important questions. I accept the statement that the flow of the story is very slow, too. And overall, it could be a little bit better, like everything else.But the stills are beautiful. And in its slow way it gives me a long smile instead of periodic laughter.Chill out with the movie, dude. And think about your life for a minute.