supermaggie As noted by others: no gay film in the actual sense, rather a mixture of surf film, teen movie, growing up story, with a little family drama, a little working-class drama, some gay issues, but especially a film about two (or three) brothers. Therein lies the weakness of the film: it wants too much and gets lost. If it focused only on the brothers and the gay issue, it would surely have been more successful. I don't think the film is a great achievement, but mainly due to the two outstanding characters of Fergus (Xavier Samuel) and the / his grandfather (Barry Otto) it is pleasant and entertaining enough and at the end -with the talk of the twins on the beach about the third brother- it comes full circle. But still: more focus on Fergus and his relationships with family and friends instead of Jesse and his surfing and the beach parties etc. would have certainly worked better and would have been better received by the audience targeted by marketing.

sandover I can't really say - not what went wrong, but - what didn't go right with this little film. The acting is not actually bad, though the script is easily yelling at times; nice surf shots, but prudish, as another reviewer mentioned, use of half-naked shots, that mar any feeling of contest, or sport, in the film, and the comic effect (I'm talking here about the scene of the two brothers running naked in town) is not delivered. Not quite clumsy; rather half-baked, and somewhat hurriedly edited. Pity, the opening shots were really nice. Why not stick to what they retroactively conveyed, that is a sense of enclosure from the city's industrial whereabouts, and from the huge ships that look like whalers and close off the sea imparting a sense of oppression and the quest for freedom? Newcastle? Looks more like an old hut full of adolescent ware.

ughetta86 This is one of the few movies that really leave me full of doubts whether I like it or not.It's about an angry teen boy, Jesse, who is a surf promise, and his difficult relationship with his two brothers. The older one, Victor, used to be a surf champion, but he had to quit and now he is a frustrated young man, who bullies his younger half-brothers. The other one is Fergus, he's Jesse's tween and he is gay. Around them there are a lot of other characters. All of them got some potential, but they are definitely too many. The parents are two good people who try to be there for their kids, but sometimes they just can't reach them. The grandfather is just adorable, wise, funny and comprehensive. And then there are Jesse's friends: Nathan, Andy and Scotty.Let's put it in his way, it is definitely enjoyable and pleasant, the cast is good-looking and the landscape awesome (dispite industrialization hang over the waves in each scene).Moreover, the characters and the story are quite catching and interesting, yet everything seems to be just skimmed. There are a too many characters, so none of them can get the depth he deserves. The same material used in a different way (maybe with a different format, like a TV series), may have lead to something much better.So, my suggestion is to watch the film if you are into this kind of staff, but do not expect too much, otherwise you'll be disappointed!

jim-314 I really wanted to like this movie. I generally like coming-of-age movies, and surf movies, and growing-up-gay movies. But I found the characters in this movie (with a couple of exceptions) a bunch of unlikable louts who spend much of the movie in testosterone-driven chest-butting, and I just couldn't care about them. The loutishness leads to a certain predictable amount of melodrama, and some psychologically simplistic soul-searching on the way to tying up ends. The only likable characters were the protagonist's younger brother (the gay one, who takes a lot of psychological abuse for his gayness), and the sympathetic grandfather (the only guy in the family who seems to show any affection for the younger brother). These are secondary characters. The young brother's coming to terms with his sexuality and tentative romantic exploration with one of the surfers is a minor subplot of the film. On the up side, the young guys (and gals) in the film look great, and the surfing footage is really nice, especially some of the underwater footage. But by the end of the movie, I was not sorry to leave the company of a group of characters that I mostly found unpleasant and unsympathetic.