Jay Moriarty was a Santa Cruz phenom who surfed the daunting Mavericks break at 16. In the hands of Walden Media (The Chronicles of Narnia) he's a youngster (Ian Ziering lookalike Jonny Weston) so squeaky clean he's shocked that his surfing-and-pizza-slinging buddy (Devin Crittenden) is selling weed. The local skater punks (who look like they're in their 30s) call Jay "Little Trash" because his mother (Elisabeth Shue) drinks and works at Sears. Jay needs a father figure, which he finds in neighbor Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler), a Mavericks regular who, in typical movie-training fashion, never takes him surfing and instead makes him do everything but wax his car. Meanwhile, Frosty's wife (Abigail Spencer) frets that he's frosty with his own children. Directed by Curtis Hanson and Michael Apted, who took over after the former suffered complications from heart surgery, Chasing Mavericks is fair family fare. For the real Mavericks, stick with Stacy Peralta's documentary Riding Giants.
