I did laugh *at* lot at this film rather than with it, mainly because of the way 80s trends have dated so much more than any failure on the part of the film. e.g. it's just unfortunate that the band sequences are so terribly 80s specific that it renders that section unintentionally hilarious.
It is a fairly predictable story: bloke is good at his sport, here this is surf life saving. So is his brother. Father was in his day, but came 2nd in a major race and has never recovered. Now he pushes his elder son (the brother, not the main character) to achieve what he couldn't and bullies the main character. Along the way, the bloke meets a ballet dancer and falls in love. It's all pretty cheesy, all the boxes for drama are ticked: family drama, achievement against the odds, love story.
The Coolangatta Gold is now an iconic surf life saving sports marathon, but at the time it was an invention of this film. (The very first race was *this film*, with the actor's portions filmed around it). If this film did nothing else for Australian culture or cinema, it did leave that one remarkable achievement. For competitive surf life savers, the Gold is still the holy grail of endurance racing.
The surf footage is great. The love story is less good - it felt like filler, rather than a key point to the plot. The "dirty dancing" scene is fairly ridiculous!
As a passionate surf life saver, I found the attitude of the father really, really distasteful. In the junior side of SLS, we try to foster an environment where parents are NOT encouraged to live vicariously through successful children (we try to make it as far as possible in the other direction!) The same goes for the senior competition, but it's harder to avoid there and I've seen people like this character in real life. Those people are as unpleasant in real life as this guy is on film and I find it really disheartening that the film's climax and pay off vindicates the way he has behaved during the film. That really left a sour note at the end of the film which took off a few stars in my rating.
It is a fairly predictable story: bloke is good at his sport, here this is surf life saving. So is his brother. Father was in his day, but came 2nd in a major race and has never recovered. Now he pushes his elder son (the brother, not the main character) to achieve what he couldn't and bullies the main character. Along the way, the bloke meets a ballet dancer and falls in love. It's all pretty cheesy, all the boxes for drama are ticked: family drama, achievement against the odds, love story.
The Coolangatta Gold is now an iconic surf life saving sports marathon, but at the time it was an invention of this film. (The very first race was *this film*, with the actor's portions filmed around it). If this film did nothing else for Australian culture or cinema, it did leave that one remarkable achievement. For competitive surf life savers, the Gold is still the holy grail of endurance racing.
The surf footage is great. The love story is less good - it felt like filler, rather than a key point to the plot. The "dirty dancing" scene is fairly ridiculous!
As a passionate surf life saver, I found the attitude of the father really, really distasteful. In the junior side of SLS, we try to foster an environment where parents are NOT encouraged to live vicariously through successful children (we try to make it as far as possible in the other direction!) The same goes for the senior competition, but it's harder to avoid there and I've seen people like this character in real life. Those people are as unpleasant in real life as this guy is on film and I find it really disheartening that the film's climax and pay off vindicates the way he has behaved during the film. That really left a sour note at the end of the film which took off a few stars in my rating.