KEY POINTS:
No wonder Sydney surfing tribe the Bra Boys managed to convince actor Russell Crowe to narrate a feature film about them.
The Hollywood star and the notorious beach bums both have a history of enjoying a bit of biffo. Bra Boys, a documentary-style film directed by head Bra
Boy Sunny Abberton, shows bare knuckle street fights that make Thai kickboxing look like a squabble between two toddlers.
Abberton got in contact with Crowe through league player and fellow Bra Boy, John Sutton, who plays for Crowe's club the South Sydney Rabbitohs. The movie star liked what he saw and agreed to voice it.
"We wanted to take this movie away from being just a surfing movie that the mainstream could relate to, and someone like Russell brings that," says Abberton.
The tribe, from the beach suburb of Maroubra (hence the Bra Boys' name), are plagued by bad press - most famously, members of the tribe had a brawl with a group of off-duty police officers in 2002. For the record, the Bra Boys won.
However, while Abberton admits they are no angels, he says there's more to them than brawls, wild parties, and reckless shenanigans such as setting themselves on fire and jumping off the Maroubra cliffs into the sea.
The documentary, which traces the history of the tribe, its function in the community and features surfing action from around the world, seeks to set the record straight.
First and foremost, the Bra Boys are a surfing tribe that have some of the world's top surfers in their ranks, including Abberton's brother Koby who's one of the best big wave surfers in the world. He's also dated Paris Hilton and Tara Reid.
Plus, the group is involved in everything from community protests to youth development in Maroubra, a suburb with large numbers of housing commission homes (similar to New Zealand's state housing) where the majority of the Bra Boys grew up. It's a suburb where poverty, drugs and crime rule.
"We're not trying to make out we're goodie-two-shoes because there's obviously social problems in the area," says Abberton in his cruisy surfer drawl.
"The point is, and our main message to the kids is, 'You think you're tough? Well, don't go out there and snatch someone's bag, or break into a house. Let's go surf a 3m wave, 2m from the rocks, in 30cm of water. Come on, let's go. You think you're tough?' So we've tried to show them another way to be extreme but break that whole cycle of violence, drugs and incarceration."
The Abbertons, also made up of brothers Jai and Dakota, speak from experience. They were brought up in a housing commission flat and their parents were drug addicts.
Surfing, or, as Abberton puts it many times during this interview, "the ocean", is what got them out of that destructive cycle.
However, it has to be put to Abberton that you can see why the police, the media, and outsiders may view the Bra Boys in a negative light considering their thuggish and rebellious behaviour?
"Yeah, but let's face it," says Abberton, "we're in a housing commission community, with huge unemployment, and a huge drug and alcohol problem, so there's going to be those problems. We're not trying to glorify it, but it's a reality and it's happening every day. What we're saying is, instead of putting a kid up against the wall and fining him for not having a helmet, so by the time he's 15 he owes $5000 in fines, we should be putting programmes in place that embrace kids and get them off the streets and onto the beach."
A sinister twist to the movie is the fact that during filming Jai was jailed for the murder of Sydney underworld figure Anthony Hines. Joby is also implicated in the investigation and charged with hindering it.
Abberton filmed the long legal fight to get his brothers off.
"What happened in our family is happening every day in the housing commission communities, not only in Australia, but in New Zealand and right around the world. So when the incident happened and my brothers were charged, I was prepared to show it. But it wasn't guaranteed to be a fairytale ending, that was the intense thing."
Whether there was a happy ending, you'll have to watch the movie and see.
Another event the documentary covers are the race riots in Cronulla - another South Sydney suburb - during December 2005.
Because of the Bra Boys' contacts within the large number of ethnic communities in the area, Abberton and other members of the tribe played a mediating role during the riots.
"There's been so much shit been written about us, that we're racist, all that sort of shit, [but] I thought the riots were disgusting and totally un-Australian," says Abberton.
The Bra Boys also got involved because Maroubra, which is one of the most multicultural beach communities in Australia, was attacked by 150 armed men. The local community - around half of which were from the ethnic communities, says Abberton - got together and defended it.
"If you're a little bit more welcoming and tolerant to different cultures, not only will they embrace Australian culture, they will be willing to fight for it. That makes you stronger and makes the community stronger," he says.
If the movie sounds a little too much like a positive PR spin on the Bra Boys then take Abberton's advice: "It doesn't matter if the audience don't like us because it's a true story. Let people make up their own minds."
Lowdown
What: Bra Boys
Starring: Koby, Sunny, Jai, and Dakota Abberton, and Kelly Slater. Narrated by Russell Crowe
When: Opens today at Rialto and SkyCity Cinemas
