Big Wednesday (1978)

Very well executed

Great Film overall

Absolutely Brilliant!

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Many other viewers have said how much they loved this movie. I don't have the words it seems. I can say I agree. I have several favorite movies, this is another. How could I have never seen the movie? It was made in 1978 but the action is the mid sixties till the later seventies. I was a surfer in the mid sixties. I love surfer movies, OK, this is more of a growing up movie but it's about surfers. Well I wanted to pass along the one thing that caught me about watching this movie. Not all of the rides are the best rides of all time. Some are pretty good but the surfing is more good surfer as opposed to champion surfing. It's real. And another thing, the boards, those are the long boards we used in the sixties and the seventies. Just great. Walking the Board and Hanging Five were the Cat's Meow. They hit it big time on the nail head with Big Wednesday.

Panned by most critics when it first arrived, Big Wednesday has won the belated praise of many viewers. It still may seem contrived and hokey to some. It's sentimental. As the director admits, he likes it that way. Opinions about this film may vary according to the age of the critic and the degree to which he or she is a surfing enthusiast. For viewers like me, who rushed out to the California beaches to "live the life" in the early sixties, served a tour in Vietnam, then returned to start a family and steady job, it has visions and music that evoke strong, bittersweet memories. Showing the gradual intrusion of the real world and its effect on the dreamlike freedom of the younger surfers, Big Wednesday can be appreciated as a successful coming-of-age film. Having lived through those changes in American culture, a viewer can easily overlook the film's sometimes melodramatic nature and enjoy the emotional ride. For younger viewers, especially surfers,it still will have great appeal,especially as a depiction of the golden age of youth as represented by breathtaking, magnificently filmed footage of the riders of the Banzai Pipeline and Sunset Beach in Hawaii. The surfing scenes are excellent throughout, with none of the annoying back-projection studio shots as seen in lesser surfer films. The film is not flawless. The houseparty brawl goes into Peckinpah length for no real plot purpose. The let's-fool-the-drafters segment breaks from an accurate portrayal of the times in order to elicit cheap laughs. Even Busey's typical manic-comic madness doesn't save this segment. For characters who are usually portrayed as sympathetic and even respect-worthy, there are some jarring contradictions such as when Leroy brags about making a living as a "candyman" selling drugs to kids, and Matt(who has a child) and Jack (who is supposed to have matured) act as if this is a great joke. Bear seems a contrived and uncharismatic character a la "The Big Kahuna" though he is supposed to be the conveyor of wisdom to Matt. But these less successful aspects can be forgiven for the overall power of the film's emotional impact and its successful capturing of a dramatic decade of American history. It has some great moments as when Matt goes out for his last ride, and his wife,a tough and empathetic character, sends him off with an understanding smile. Perhaps that's a little unrealistic, but it says a lot about the joy and freedom a couple can share. Milius is capable of writing and directing some very subtle, effective moments in this film. (Note: Milius, an accomplished surfer himself, in his voice-over commentary on the making of Big Wednesday offers interesting biographical details and a fascinating view of American culture of the sixties.)

This is a coming-of-age drama, complete with hokey voice-over intro in style of Stand by Me, about a group of lads growing up in a surfing town in the late 1950s into the 60s. I gave up after an hour, though it failed the 20 minute rule where at that point I realise it hadn't captured my imagination. My problem is the writing- it's very broad. In the first half hour there are two extended fistfights in the style of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, you half expect a fiddle to be playing in the background. Just one punch could kill someone, but no one has a broken nose, cut lip or anything. One fight takes place at a party, where it's already been established that the long-suffering mum is upstairs reading a book and rolling her eyes at the loud music. But when it all kicks off downstairs, and someone is thrown through a glass window, she's nowhere to be seen. The Yanks in it - I was gonna say they're too American, which sounds bad. But you know The Graduate, when Benji is trying to locate Elaine in the final reel, and meets some jocks in a shower, and struggles to relate to them a bit. It's like the characters are all like that. After an hour I gave up on this. My guess is that if you've lived it, this film would be a nostalgia trip for you, as you could fill in the details where the writing doesn't bother.

The surfing scenes are spectacular, the acting is excellent, but the plot of this coming-of-age story is, unfortunately, washed up.Three surfing buddies grow up in Malibu in the 1960s, facing the standard dilemmas of romance, career, Vietnam and the age-old question of what to do when they grow up. They reunite every few years, a bit jaded as they age but with their passion for surfing intact. The film climaxes with Big Wednesday, a day the surf has swelled to spectacular proportions. William Katt and Gary Busey turn in respectable performances, and Jan-Michael Vincent reminds us what a solid actor he was before life's temptations derailed his career.The problem with "Big Wednesday" is that when the characters are on land, which is most of the film, they're not overly interesting. "American Graffiti" tackled the terrain of Vietnam and drugs much more effectively a few years before this film, and the character voice-over became all too familiar in "The Wonder Years" a few years later.Still, this is worth checking out for the superb surfing sequences and the notable cast coasting on the waves of youth.