Caffeinated Clint
By Clint Morris
Check out anyone’s IMDB profile and you’ll find that most actors tend to have a cheapish, embarrassing title buried near the bottom. For instance, Jim Carrey has a terrible little Canadian comedy called “Copper Mountain” listed, Sandra Bullock has a couple – “Love Potion #9” and “When the Party’s Over”, Jean Claude Van Damme has “Black Eagle”, and Adam Sandler has the always-available-to-rent “Going Overboard”. Matthew McConaughey’s got one two – only one of them’s up the top of his page!
Produced by and starring the constantly-shirtless Southerner, “Surfer Dude” is easily the worst film McConaughey has ever done (and this is a man whose doing such films as “Texas Chainsaw Massacre : The Beginning” and a film with Jennifer Lopez, remember!?). It’s a stinker and then some.
Why would McConaughey even do it? Especially now, when studios are knocking down his door to have him play the attractive male lead in what female-skewed rom-com they’re planning to push into theatres next Feb 14! Was it that the actor just wanted to get something cooking at his production company (JKL Productions)? And fast!? Is that why he didn’t wait for a decent script to come along before calling ‘action’ on this lazy turd?
This vain, misdirected surfing comedy features McConaughey (without shirt, for the most part) as Steve Addington, back home in Malibu from a worldwide surfing expedition. Steve’s new sponsor Eddie Zarno (Jeffrey Nordling, ‘’D3 : The Mighty Ducks”) wants him to participate in a high-tech virtual reality surfing game, but the surfing legend smells exploitation and resists the offer. Meanwhile Steve makes a movie on Dannii (Alexie Gilmore), one of Zarno’s employees.
Australian actor Nathan Phillips – in his second major U.S movie; the other being ‘’Snakes on a Plane” – plays one of McConaughey’s surfing buddies. I’m betting he’ll be trying to scrub this (along with the ill-fated “Redline”) off his CV with large blobs of dry white-out in a coupla years.
If you can get through the film, which also features the likes of Woody Harrelson (why Woody!?) and Scott Glenn (Glenn!? Really!?) without using the scan or fast-forward button to get you thru til the end you deserve a medal.
Extras
Extras include a featurette (exploring McConaughey’s fascination with surfing – and those that do it), deleted scenes and webisodes.
