Chasing Mavericks is supposed to be about Jay Moriarity, who was obsessively committed to surfing from the ages of 15 to 22, when he drowned in the Maldives (according to the end of the movie). In reality, this Lifetime Channel-esque biopic seemed to be more of a love fest dedicated to "Frosty", the 40+ year old "total surfing dude" who mentored Jay for twelve weeks (really? that's all?) before the arrival of El Nino and some pretty tubular wave activity. Moriarity surfed the epic waves and survived to tell about it. He was then thrust into instant surfer-dude stardom (a relative achievement, let us be perfectly frank).
There are a few questions raised by this movie which can be taken seriously, such as whether it is nobler to seek to excel at something incredibly dangerous than to care for one's future existence. By just about any measure, what Moriarity did was reckless, as proved by his early death. But it did seem to be his choice, so he died a happy man, so to speak. He left a blonde air-heady wife behind, but she knew what she was getting into when she betrothed this guy, so she could not have really been all that surprised.
Frosty, on the other hand, renounced reckless surfer-dude activity upon the untimely death of his delicate little wife, who only minutes before her fatal stroke had made him promise never to leave her and the children in the lurch as a result of his passion. The whole Frosty aspect of this story, that he assigned "essays" for his pupil to write about Fear and Observation, etc., struck me as pretty implausible. In any case, that is clearly not the typical formation of surfer dudes, and maybe if Moriarity had spent that time surfing instead he might have lived a couple more years. Who knows?
I give this movie a 6 for the fine pictures of big waves. Otherwise, I have to agree with many of the naysayers: there's enough cheese here to cover all of the pizzas ever sold by young Jay Moriarity in the part- time job he held down so that he could save up for a radio to listen to the early morning wave reports. Too bad that his alcoholic mother, ditched by his absentee father (who was replaced by Frosty, thanks to whom Jay ended up dying at 22!) sometimes needed to borrow from his stash. A few other aspects of California culture were treated in this production, but mostly stereotypical stuff handled rather clumsily.
There are a few questions raised by this movie which can be taken seriously, such as whether it is nobler to seek to excel at something incredibly dangerous than to care for one's future existence. By just about any measure, what Moriarity did was reckless, as proved by his early death. But it did seem to be his choice, so he died a happy man, so to speak. He left a blonde air-heady wife behind, but she knew what she was getting into when she betrothed this guy, so she could not have really been all that surprised.
Frosty, on the other hand, renounced reckless surfer-dude activity upon the untimely death of his delicate little wife, who only minutes before her fatal stroke had made him promise never to leave her and the children in the lurch as a result of his passion. The whole Frosty aspect of this story, that he assigned "essays" for his pupil to write about Fear and Observation, etc., struck me as pretty implausible. In any case, that is clearly not the typical formation of surfer dudes, and maybe if Moriarity had spent that time surfing instead he might have lived a couple more years. Who knows?
I give this movie a 6 for the fine pictures of big waves. Otherwise, I have to agree with many of the naysayers: there's enough cheese here to cover all of the pizzas ever sold by young Jay Moriarity in the part- time job he held down so that he could save up for a radio to listen to the early morning wave reports. Too bad that his alcoholic mother, ditched by his absentee father (who was replaced by Frosty, thanks to whom Jay ended up dying at 22!) sometimes needed to borrow from his stash. A few other aspects of California culture were treated in this production, but mostly stereotypical stuff handled rather clumsily.