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Life's a Beach

Directed by Michael Apted and Curtis Hanson, "Chasing Mavericks" is based on the true story of teenage surfing legend Jay Moriarity.

Jay (Jonny Weston) and his friends are adrenaline junkies, spending their time diving, skateboarding, and mostly catching waves at their Santa Cruz beach. Jay begins chasing the ultimate thrill when he discovers that the biggest waves - the mythic Mavericks - occur nearby. Local surfing guru Frosty Heston (Gerard Butler) trains Jay to survive his quest.

Despite what sounds like a dead-in-the-water premise, this is more than a surfer dude movie. In fact there aren't any stereotypical dudes to be found. These surfers may be bored, but they aren't slackers. Jay in particular is a type-A striver who wants to experience life at its limits. "Chasing Mavericks" is also a father-son movie, or an absent-father-son movie, as Frosty becomes the father figure that has been missing in Jay's life.

The about-more-than-just-surfing message is often delivered in pat platitudes: "It's about finding that one thing in life that sets you free." "Something bigger than you are." "It's the reason you were put on this earth." Gerard Butler has enough presence to shoulder some of the movie's tacked-on gravitas. But what the script lacks, the cinematography makes up for. The unbilled star of the movie is water. The element of water makes several scene-stealing appearances that reduce the actors to empty vessels.

Whatever motives make someone want to go chasing Mavericks, it's apparently a guy thing. Jay's single mother Kristy (Elizabeth Shue) doesn't surf but has her own interests: drinking and sleeping. Frosty's wife Brenda (Abigail Spencer) is almost ethereal as she nudges her husband along the path of the righteous. One suspects if she wasn't in Santa Cruz with a guy named Frosty, she would be guiding Dante through Paradise. The relationship that develops between Jay and his girlfriend Kim (Leven Rambin) is as predictable as the tides.

With the amount of water in this movie, the line between bravery and stupidity is easily blurred, and by the end has been washed away entirely. "Chasing Mavericks" is about more than surfing. But it's unclear whether it's also about being out of your element or out of your mind.