With Endless Summer filmmaker Bruce Brown created the first widely distributed surfing documentary. It's fitting then that his son, Dana Brown, continues the tradition that his father started with Step Into Liquid, an interesting and sometimes awe inspiring look at different aspects of surfing as a sport and as a culture. This documentary takes us from the Great Lakes surfers of Minnesota, to the cold water wave riders of Ireland with stops at plenty of tropical locations throughout the world in between. Brown and his crew scour the globe to bring us some of the more interesting people from the world of surfing and so we see how a young man who has lost the use of his legs surfs by laying down chest first on his board. We see how three ex-pat Americans who call Ireland home have introduced the sport to both Protestant and Catholic children in Northern Ireland and see learn of a quirky middle aged hippy who made it his mission to not only surf once a day for a quarter of a century, but also to build a big ball out of his spent surf wax. Ick. We spend time with some foxy female beach bums in Australia and we visit with some of the old guard who have since become legends of the sport. More importantly, however, we're treated to a lot of really amazing footage of average looking people surfing some very big waves and it's here that Step Into Liquid really excels. The interviews and narrative are moderately interesting at times but they serve only to stitch together the surfing scenes and to give them some context. What matters the most here are the visuals and on that level this picture definitely delivers. We see a few surfers trying things out off the coast but where things get really intense is when we travel out a little further and take a boat trip a hundred miles off the coast to watch a few experts surf on sixty foot waves. These people appear almost as specs at times, almost vanishing into the water when the camera pulls back. Step Into Liquid isn't deep nor is it earth shattering in any way, shape or form. It doesn't really do anything that other surf documentaries haven't done before or since nor does it really dig deep into the psychology of the people who risk their lives for thrills in the middle of a gigantic wave in the middle of the ocean. It does, however, manage to bring some absolutely stunning footage of the surfers, the waves, and the various landscapes that it all plays out over into the safety of our own homes so that experienced surfers and the curious alike can watch some of the best in the industry strut their stuff.

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