IMDB has this on their website:

Steve Addington is the world’s preeminent surfer – cool, laid back, stoned, shirtless and barefoot, living off endorsements for surfboards and trunks, paid in cash. In Malibu his endorsement contract has been bought by Eddie Zarno, a surfer turned businessman who wants Steve to record his moves for an electronic virtual reality game. Steve just wants to surf. While Zarno tries to change Steve’s mind, the Pacific goes calm – there are no waves for days on end. Steve’s attracted to Danni, recently fired by Zarno, but the lack of surfing drains him. Plus, he’s low on dough. Will he sign with Zarno, get paid, and lose his self-respect?

Surfer, Dude isn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, I won’t lie. In fact, it’s probably one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It does allow Matthew McConaughey to get into an easy role, that of shirtless stoner living the beach lifestyle. This is something he does well in his day to day life, and so for a movie it’s a breeze. Surfer, Dude also features Woody Harrelson who is also known to enjoy some weed and a little bit of a hippie lifestyle. He’s done crazy things before like mental long fasts, living off nothing but the land and he is a little bit alternative. But it’s sort of cool!

Matthew McConaughey basically plays himself and Willie Nelson also makes an appearance, obviously smoking a whole lot of weed. McConaughey comes across as just weird in the film, not from a “I wouldn’t trust my kids with him touchy touchy”, but just from an acting point of view. He holds much more potential than this, but his life just continues to be a little on the too chilled side. His company J.K Livin had a hand in the movie, and I also noted that it was a Weinstein production referring to the disgusting, overweight, swearing, Entourage playing Harvey Weinstein. There was this article on Gawker, do take a moment to read that. It seems Weinstein is going down, and putting money in a film like this is a sign that business is bad, and the film is bad.

There was nothing noteworthy in the humour department, rather the film seems to reflect McConaughey a little too much in real life, where his life has gone the way of his character in the film…a little downhill. I dig McConaughey, he’s chilled and all that but he can really hold a lot more in a film. It may be a passion project as he loves weed, being shirtless and surfing, but the film was poorly written, it didn’t bring out any emotion that you’d normally associate with a pro athlete who has hit hard times (Think a little along the lines of The Wrestler), and it didn’t bring any humour. For this genre of film, either you need to bring out some emotion for the audience, or you need to humour them and Surfer, Dude did none of that.

While I’d love to give it a thumbs up because I also like the surfer lifestyle, unfortunately this is a large letdown.

It’s at your nearest video store right now, but give it a skip. For this week there is not too much worthwhile in Cape Town’s video stores, but give The Wrestler a bash, I loved it.

Mickey Rourke is rough, tough and has hit rock bottom in the film, and in a way it is a reflection of how his life panned out, before making a spectacular comeback with the film.

It’s worthwhile watching that this week.