Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Simon_Says_Movies As far as the sports genre is concerned, those featuring surfing are about as niche as you go. Only 12 films have ever grossed more than $1 million at the domestic box office let alone found any measure of breakout success. Those that did find some semblance of an audience, like Soul Surfer and Point Break, had the added aid of family appeal and incorporating a heist element respectively, but for the most part they land with a whisper – not anything like the thundering, mammoth waves these daredevils tackle.But in spite of this subgenre's lack of mainstream appeal there is one thing they – and Australian import Drift – prove, and that is surfing looks damn cool, especially when presented so slickly and in such a high energy fashion. So it's a shame in the case of this period drama (which transports us back to the early years of the sport in the land down under) that the wet and wild sequences trump anything transpiring on dry land and that most of the human drama relies on unnecessary plot turns and the usual formula that accompanies almost all sport based fare.Drift follows two brothers Jimmy (Xavier Samuel) and Andy Kelly (Myles Pollard) and their mother who reside in a small seaside town following a late night escape from their abusive father/husband. Already carrying a passion for surfing, the two grow with the hobby and view their actual jobs as mostly inconveniences. It's one day when their mother's seamstress occupation produces a homemade wetsuit that gives Andy the idea of marrying passion with profession and they endeavour to open their own surf shop with customized gear and boards. But of course, nothing is as easy as it seems as money, gangsters, the allures of the hippy age and rivalries all act as roadblocks to a newfound dream.Things are kicked off even further by the arrival of a duo of righteous surfers played by a tubular Sam Worthington and his plutonic companion Lani, played by Spartacus: Blood and Sand's Lesley-Ann Brandt. So with this rag tag gang assembled they seek to revolutionize how surfers view the gear they use: surf attire made by surfers, not made by "the man" and promoted by models who have never hit the waves a day in their life. The premise, retro feel and fine performers make Drift seem like the right idea of how to approach this sport – using it as a backdrop to a family drama and a struggle for the little guy (with some awesome surf sequences tossed in for good measure).While this is the case some of the time, Drift invests in too many unnecessary plot threads, including one about some thugs who for some reason have an issue with the Kellys, which eventually involves into an all out war as one of their own gets mixed up in the drug trade. With the Kellys already struggling with a mortgage, their start-up business and the trials of growing together, this added kink proves to be nothing more than a distraction (and is furthermore concluded in a laughably stunted fashion). There is also a bizarre storyline involving a completely underdeveloped, inexplicably evil banker trying to steal the Kellys farm, er, house which adds nothing but a cartoonish villain that makes Mr. Potter look chipper.Worthington's character JB is also a bit of a perplexing entity, though the Aussie native's performance is certainly among the most natural he's ever given. His tippy motif is fine enough, never becoming to philosophic and grating, but his ideals seem completely jumbled. One moment he's stating (regarding the Kelly's plan to make their own surf line) that you can't beat the man by becoming the man and at another instance saying that you can't always fight and should sometimes just resign to what is. Additionally scenes of him using his passion for photography and filmmaking to help make these brothers distinct in the industry go nowhere until the very end, deviating from the main story for what become perfunctory attempts to add substance.Then we arrive at the climax, which of course involves a local surf competition, the winnings from which could save the family farm, er, house and get those gangsters off their back. Again, while impressively staged (and not concluded in the most ridiculous way possible) it collectively doesn't get much more clichéd than that, and when you lump in the montages and other corny moments it truly softens the experience.Not content on just examining an interesting moment in history, Drift piles on dramatic excess and contrived turns which are muted to some effect only by universally strong work from the cast and, again, those gripping surf sequences. So while certainly not boring and far from offensively bad, Drift isn't compelling enough to warrant anything other than a rental, and definitely not enough to spur any sort of revolution for the surf drama.

Tony Heck "You know the trouble with being the last man standing? You got no one to share it with." This is the true story of Jimmy (Samuel) & Andy Kelly. They are two brothers who share a love for surfing. When they come up with an idea to open a shop to sell their own gear Andy is 100% into it while Jimmy just wants to do his own thing. Between the money problems, the dangerous waves and angry bikers things don't go as easy as the brothers planned. There have been a few surfing movies to come out in the last few years. Soul Surfer I thought was very good. Chasing Mavericks was OK. This one is a little of both. The first hour and a half were a little slow and I almost stopped it a few times, but the ending was great and I am very glad that I stuck with it. There are some movies that are good but the ending seems to ruin everything. This one is the opposite. The movie is a little slow moving but the ending makes up for it. Overall, a movie that is a struggle in some parts but the end is a great reward for sticking with it. I give it a B-.

Tim Meade Expectations for the lowish-budget Aussie surfing film Drift were not pitched overly high. My local cinema's synopsis of the story about two brothers who 'spend their youth searching for the perfect wave…(dreaming) of a world where they can surf to live and live to surf' I pretty much felt sure what I was letting myself in for.But the film delivered more than was promised.The film has a lively start, with the brothers as young children arriving fortuitously at the Western Australian surf town which would become their home after the cross-continent drive from Sydney where their mother had executed a tense midnight flit for the three of them to escape their drunken brute of a father.The action quickly fast forwards to their young adulthood as they lead a laid back if dead-end lifestyle before realising they can make surfboards better than those commercially available, moulding them in the garage at their home as their seamstress mother starts fashioning custom-made wetsuits. Their ambitions to expand are constantly thwarted by a lack of funds, the myopic tendencies of the town's old world conservative bank manager and the unwanted attentions of the local constabulary suspicious of their motives and lifestyle. Matters are complicated by a feud with the local bikie-gang – also the town's drug suppliers.A talented, itinerant and very hirsute surf filmmaker, a slightly unconvincing Sam Worthington, arrives on the scene in his bus-come-home with an attractive Hawaiian companion befriending the brothers and giving them much needed support in their constant battles with the bikies and encouragement in their enterprises.The main characterisations within the film were well drawn. Myles Pollard gave a stand-out performance as the elder brother, Andy, whose drive and business acumen didn't impinge upon his enjoyment of the more flippant things in life. The younger, rather wayward and unreliable brother Jimmy was nicely played by Xavier Samuel with roguish charm. Their mutual attraction and rivalry for the Hawaiian girl was subtly underplayed.The story swept along at a good pace and remained surprisingly fresh and original until the film's showdown. In debt to the bikies after becoming unwittingly involved in a drug deal by an accomplice, the boys desperately need cash they don't have. But as luck would have it, there is an upcoming major surf competition on the horizon. If only this could be won and the cash prize used to get them out of trouble…Jimmy, the more talented surfer, has gone walkabout so it falls to Andy to register as a wild-card entrant and save both their dreams and business – as well as his unbroken legs. From that point onwards, we were in rather familiar territory.This is a small scale film, well aware of its limitations which on the whole punched nicely above its weight. It portrayed a dark side to the sleepy coastal town to a degree I had not expected. Cinematography from Geoffrey Hall was first rate capturing the beauty and awesome power of the surf. There is enough good surfing action to please the aficionados but not at the expense of developing story and characters. A sporadic glam-rock soundtrack was insufficient, possibly the result of budget restraints.

kathrynpayne Surfing movies have been my favorites since i was a kid but when will we get a surfing movie with a story in it? drift promises the beginning of a story about a surfing family but none of the relationships develop into something that grips you. One brother is the slow and steady type, working in the local saw mill, which incidentally reminded me a lot of Tim Wintons book Breath. The other brother is supposed to be more cool and a better surfer but he has an unfortunate habit of stealing stuff. This was another Wintonesque touch. They're both pretty good together, despite their differences and there's a punch up at one point but none of these personality traits are really sorted out. And this is just the two leads. They both love the same girl and you're expecting some kind of resolution there but what? it just peters out. very unsatisfactory.