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Created Nov 06, 2012 10:34PM PST • Edited Oct 16, 2017 07:14PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Very Good 3.5

   Live Like Jay or even Of Men and Mavericks would have been a better title than Chasing Mavericks. Plain old Mavericks would have been the most pure. Whatever the title, this soulful and occasionally thrilling movie isn’t for everyone, but it’s for lots more than just surfers. Lovers of the Pacific Coast up Santa Cruz and San Mateo county way will find it utterly charming.

   It is however a terrific surfing movie – on the waves, on the beach, in the head and certainly on the screen. Get motion sick easy? Don’t sit close at the start of the movie. Or at least make sure you’ve got an empty popcorn bag handy.

   It gets better. In fact it gets sick better. Sick in a good way. A very good way. Super surfing follows – controlling the swell, shooting the curl, walking the board.

   Nobody did it better than surf star Jay Moriarity, whose origin story Chasing Mavericks makes a legend. Yes he died young, but not at Mavericks. In fact, his death occurs off-screen and far away from the NorCal surf settings brought so vividly to life in the movie. Surf settings? Santa Cruz, Hwy 1, Half Moon Bay and of course Mavericks are as much the stars of the movie as studly Gerard Butler and young Jonny Weston.

   Here in NorCal, that home cooking sure tastes good.

4. Acting

   Very Good 3.5

   Gerard Butler’s cruiserweight machismo works well in physical roles like this. Russell Crowe comes to mind, another physical star who’s handsome from only certain angles. Butler lacks Crowe’s gravitas, however, making him not entirely compelling as Frosty Hesson, the soul surfer who mentors Jay Moriarity.

   Jonny Weston is convincing as the earnest and gifted Jay Moriarity. Will that earn Weston more starring roles? Unlikely, as his gentle nature seems to be more than just an act.

   Elisabeth Shue is shockingly effective as Moriarity’s alcoholic mother, while Abigail Spencer is attractively effective as Frosty Hesson’s understanding wife. Leven Rambin rounds out the trio of women who love their surfers, she as Jay Moriarity’s blond surfer girl and future wife.

   Taylor Handley jumps off the screen as a delinquent Santa Cruz dude, with Keegan Boos making almost as strong an impression as the same character while a little boy.

   Let’s also shout out to the three magnificent surfers in the Maverick’s crew with Gerard Butler: Greg Long, Peter Mel and Zach Wormhoudt.

5. Male Stars Very Good 3.5

6. Female Stars Very Good 3.5

7. Female Costars Very Good 3.5

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Very Good 3.5

    Vividly shot, the film serves as a celebration of Surf City. That said, it labors to amp up the cinematic flair, to the point of being cinematically ‘roided. It’s also often difficult to follow the in-surf action.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Directors Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted deserve credit for making excellent use of the great locales in and around Santa Cruz, and for capturing the soulful ethos of the surfer community. They even do some justice to the delinquent dudes who populate its edges.

12. Play OK 2.5

    Simple dialog just this side of turgid barely drags a venti-big real life story. No surprise that two of the three writers are rookies, and the third is hardly Paddy Chayefsky.

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

17. Sex Innocent 1.5

18. Violence Gentle 1.5

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    Several plot elements are apparently fictionalized, including the dysfunction in Jay Moriarity’s home life.

    However he did become famous when he made the cover of Surfer magazine wiping out at Mavericks, as depicted above. He spent the next six years surfing the world, sponsored by O’Neill. He didn’t die surfing, but rather free diving in the Maldives on the day before he turned 23. His was a short but spectacular life.

    To this day, graffiti honoring him reads Live Like Jay.

    Finally, my very brief surfing career taught me that there are two parts to the sport: the paddling and the surfing. The latter is fairly easy once you get the hang of it. The former is a killer, which is why Frosty Hesson trained Jay Moriarity to paddle huge distances before allowing him to surf Mavericks.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.7

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0