Sons of Summer appealed to me for one reason, and one reason only, Temuera Morrison. I'm a Star Wars fan, so of course I'm going to be interested in the actor who has played numerous characters in the franchise that I adore. However, not even my love of the iconic bounty hunter could keep me entertained throughout this oddly disjointed movie.
Sean (Joe Davidson) is a surfer dude with a troubled past. His father was murdered thirty years ago, leaving a young Sean to grow up in the care system, and he's got a history of theft and petty crime. Despite this, he's trying to put his life on the right track with his new girlfriend Katie (Isabel Lucas). He's even planning to go on a surfing road trip with a group of his friends, whose fathers were all surfer buddies with his own dad. They'll be visiting all of the spots where their fathers used to surf as a tribute trip to Sean's father.
However, Sean just can't stay away from his past, as a criminal acquaintance of his, Rick (Alex Fleri), needs some help paying off a debt to Sean's surrogate father figure Pete (Steve Nation). Rick has a plan to steal a shipment of drugs from a local gangster, Dom (Christopher Pate), that will pay off his debt in full and leave some extra cash too. With Pete backing the idea, Sean agrees to sneak into Dom's house during a party and steal a car filled with drugs. However, when Dom sends his enforcer, Frank (Temuera Morrison) after the thieves it puts Sean and everyone he cares about in the crosshairs.
Sons of Summer feels like it's trying to be two movies, one is supposed to be a heart warming movie about friends reconnecting, celebrating a father's memory, and doing some cool surfing. The other is a crime thriller filled with murder and violence. It's absolutely possible to marry two stories like this and for them to be successful, but Sons of Summer doesn't really manage that. The tones between the two stories are very different, and they can sometimes clash, such as when Frank is brutally murdering someone one minute, and the then we cut to two minutes of surfing footage and upbeat music.
It also doesn't help that the script feels pretty lacklustre in a a lot of ways too. The plot is fairly standard, and feels more like the writer is ticking off a series of points that they want to hit that they feel are expected, rather than trying anything particularly new. The dialogue is somewhat stilted and unnatural at times, with some very clunky exposition drops and shifts in emotion that don't always work, and the delivery of this is made even worse by a cast that feel a little out of their depth. The most competent member of the cast is absolutely Morrison, yet he's still playing the arch, stereotypical henchman character, so even though he's the best in the movie he doesn't exactly shine as his is a role that's not designed to be the focus or heart of the film.
There are also some leaps in logic that even after thinking about it after the fact I just can't really figure out. For example, Katie happens to be at the party that's going on when Sean steals the drug shipment. She's not in on it, it's just a coincidence. However, Frank finds security footage of her acting a bit odd at the party and comes to the conclusion that she's connected to the thief. Well, she is, and he's right about that, but the reason for her acting strange that way is never explained in the moment. Katie doesn't know that that's Sean stealing a car, so why is she acting odd in the moment. It's a complete random chance that this happens and puts Frank onto the right trail to go on his violent mission and it feels like the writers knew they needed to get Frank onto this thread but didn't really know how to do it. It's these kind of unexplained leaps in logic that really lets the movie down in a lot of ways, and it's clear the best way to really enjoy the movie is to never actually think about what's happening on screen.
Those coming to Sons of Summer for a fun surfer movie about friends reconnecting will likely be upset by the ganger story that takes over, those coming for a crime thriller will get bored during the several minutes of surfing montage, and those hoping to see Temuera Morrison kicking some arse and being a bit Boba Fett will likely regret taking that risk. Sons of Summer is definitely for someone, but I'm not really sure who.
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