Bra Boys

Just a little ways east of Sydney lies a place called Marouba Beach, home to the Bra Boys, a band of hooligan surfers founded by the Abberton Brothers in the 1990s, now made famous courtesy of a documentary entitled "Bra Boys: Blood is Thicker Than Water." When they're not out hanging ten or catching a monster wave, the boys are busy duking it out with rival gangs and even the local police.

The film, directed by Sunny Abberton himself, makes for reasonably interesting viewing, though one wonders whether the material itself truly merits a full-length documentary. It starts off painting the gang as a bunch of out-of-control hellions, then spends the rest of the time making the case that they are really just poor, misunderstood fellows at their core. The movie does a fairly convincing job in that respect - not surprising given the director's close personal ties to the subject - but the real stars of the film are the beautifully photographed curls the boys tackle in between bouts of anti-social behavior and revisionist self-reflection.

BRA BOYS Genre: Documentary Run Time: 85 Minutes Rated: M Country: Australia Director: Sunny Abberton

Bra Boys is a compelling documentary of the infamous surf gang, the Bra Boys. The story is centered around the three Abberton Brothers Jai, Sunny and Koby who joined together with other young kids going through disadvantaged upbringings. The three brothers, as well as their younger brother Dakota (who isn't mentioned in the story much) are looked after by their grandmother Ma, who becomes the boys mother, mentor and gang leader after drugs and abuse, tore apart their relationship with their mother. The Maroubra beach gangs story is a scary incite in to the Australian beach culture in the Sydney suburb which helped to form them. One full of drugs, alcohol, domestic violence, assault and rape. The director of this film, Sunny Abberton tells his side of the story on the notorious 'Bra Boys' and their story of hatred, distrust, and the love and pride they have for each other. For their 'Family' and for their 'Brothers'. The Bra Boys are amazing surfers, riding the largest, heaviest and most dangerous waves on earth and loving every minute of it. The documentary shows us mixed sides of the Bra Boys. Scenes showing their annual fun days dancing on the streets, jumping off cliffs covered in flames, on top of a very unimpressed bus drivers bus, to other scenes of brawls taking place involving guns, knives and various other weapons. The movie is mostly male dominated with the only females really mentioned being their mother Lynn who couldn't look after them due to her Heroin addiction and abusive partner, and the lady who becomes the most influential person in the boys lives, their grandmother Ma, whose house the boys hung out at and were treated with as close to a family life as some of the boys could get. Some of the boys still hang out there after over 15 years. One disappointing aspect of the story was the fact that Jai didn't use his brothers documentary as a way to tell his side of the events that happened on August 5, 2003, when he shot Tony Hines and disposed of his body over the cliff. We also didn't learn what Koby did to be facing 15 years jail. As you can imagine, the story is the Bra Boys, therefore it's their version and side of events so you can be sure that the police would completely disagree on most of the information mentioned in this documentary. However I found it quite engaging and it showed me a different side of the gang than what I expected. For example to be told that the gang was involved in the Cronulla riots as peace keepers using their multicultural backgrounds and friends to call about peace was news to me as I was under the impression they were to blame for it, and also the fact that they payed for Jess, a young talented surfer to go surfing with them. Russel Crowe narrates the story, his voice giving the impression of the tough, strong, masculine Australian men that the Bra Boys seem to be.

'Bra Boys' is a great piece of work, if a bit contradictory in parts, but then life usually is.

Georgie GYC

As raw social documentaries go, this one is surprisingly emotional. I grew up in the Sydney suburb Mascot in the 60s, behind the Sydney surf beach suburb of Maroubra; I went to school in Maroubra, surfed at Maroubra, lived at 433 Maroubra road, became a school teacher back at Maroubra in the 70s and taught some of the real characters seen in this film. So seeing BRA BOYS today is rather enlightening that such a generation has reveled in actual Bad Boy behavior, living out grubby 90s gang fantasies projected from distressing poor and illogical family schisms. Thank God they all have a Jackass sense of humor about themselves. The dangerous foolishness is genuinely hilarious, and as the documentary unravels it becomes more endearing as the viewer really gets to know the emotional side of a solid muscle mass of generational machismo. I knew three guys called Tony Hines, Tony Hinze and Tony Hinds. They all looked like the guy murdered in reel 5. One was gay. Often gang rapists are guys who actually want to have sex with a pal but mask that by abducting a female to cover their real intent. This is hinted at here. A lot of the bonding and reasons for, as depicted or explained here are also very same-sex oriented. That way they can be in a sexually exciting physical situation with another male. In fact the whole film is a celebration of very physical male bonding, young and older, mighty and mad, stupendous and stupid... reckless and devoted: the same conformities that bond the gay male community, something that has been explained in psychiatry about surfers and their male orientation gang behavior into male beauty and wildness and how it appeals. The only female of any profile here is Grandma; the one female to whom they are devoted and genuinely show their deep love. She pivots the film and it is her initial understanding of the basic needs of teen boys to bond which initiates the surfing gangs of Maroubra as seen in this generation. This is not to detract from BRA BOYS (that title might be a bit misleading for non English audiences though) because this documentary is ultimately a very rewarding and emotional display of astonishing family unity, care and unruly behavior. There are groan-worthy disappointments when the teens annoyingly bail up the local bus and terrorize the driver which is a rotten and stupid thing to do... but in a warts and all doco, makes a complete picture: idiots and arseholes last night but are taking a black dwarf surfing today. The three Abberton brothers of whom this is basically about, and their multicultural tribe of BRA BOYS now to be more Jackass than ever given the huge success of this film, will come out of this well, and I hope for the sake of everyone in Maroubra past and future take a more mature role and become tribal elders to a very influenced generation of young males. To bring this epic to the screen is a marvel in itself as this documentary is cobbled together from an enormous amount of out-of-focus footage, news clips, and wobble-cam images. The fact that it is absolutely compelling and ultimately emotional and well worth applause is a testament to the salvage expertise production crew and to the pursuit of this project by the Sydney film distributor, Troy Lum at Hopscotch Films. This house has been the source of some of the most interesting documentaries in recent years to hit local screens. His name is all over the film as it should be. BRA BOYS is a disgrace, but what a fantastic one. The final scenes of the multicultural make up of the gang is genuinely one of the proudest moments I have ever had in a cinema as an Australian and as a man one Maroubra generation ahead of this lot. Is Mark Whalberg is needed in a remake? We like our BRA BOYS exactly as they are. We saw DOGTOWN AND Z BOYS then the dumb LORDS OF DOGTOWN movie too. Beware.

Bra boys is a suggestive documentary about the surfing lifestyle in Australia. It shows aspects of the lifestyle outside of the surfing itself, including things like drinking, violence, friendship, family, murder and the involvement of the police and the law. It shows all of these things and the impacts that they have had on their lives.

The documentary was directed by two members of surf gang ‘the Bra Boys’, Sonny Abberton and Macario de Souza. Because of this it shows their views on everything and their opinions of things. While this can appear to be a biased representation of events, they did direct the documentary so of course it is going to sway to being a bit biased. Because the Bra Boys are just assumed to be the bad guys by the media and police they want to defend themselves and their reputations. I think that is a fair representation and why wouldn’t they want to show themselves in a positive way.

The Bra Boys are made up of male surfers that live in or around Maroubra Beach in New South Wales, Australia. They have all come from somewhat troubled backgrounds and didn’t really have great family lives when they were growing up so they have had to turn to each other. They come from a poor suburb and are all from working class families. They are all involved with the surf culture and lifestyle and have formed a tight brotherhood. They all have a lot of similarities so this is probably why they have bonded in the way that they have.

The main people appearing in the documentary are the Abberton brothers. The Abberton brothers are Sunny, Jai, Koby and Dakota. They all share the same mother but only two of them have the same dad. Their mother was a heroin addict so she wasn’t really there to support them and so they just took care of each other throughout the years. The Abberton brothers and their friends from the area used to hang out at their Grandma, Mavis’, house. Her house was close to the beach so it was somewhere for them to hang out and from here they formed the Bra Boys.

The documentary is narrated by Russell Crowe so from the start it gives it a kind of Australian feel. A lot of this documentary is all about Australian culture and a lot of Australians could relate to it. With things like them being against the police, larrikin characters, strong manly representation of men this can be associated as part of Australian culture.

And so the documentary shows these troubled kids trying to do good for themselves and them just having fun and surfing all day. Everything is great for them until the Bra Boys have a run in with the police. It is one of the Bra Boy’s, Mark Mathews, birthday and they are celebrating with 200 of his friends at the Coogee RSL and the local police are having a Christmas party one floor above them. A fight breaks out between the two parties and 8 Bra Boys are arrested while no police officers are charged. From this event the police and the Bra Boys have clashed with the police thinking that the Bra Boys are a bunch of criminals. This part of the documentary they show the two sides of the story so it’s not really fair to say the whole film in biased.

One of the main parts of the movie is when Jai Abberton is charged with murdering Anthony Hines. Anthony Hines had been to jail before and always in trouble with the police and was a friend of Jai’s. Jai supposedly shot Anthony Hines in self-defence and dumped his body of the side of a cliff into the water. Jai’s brother Koby was also charged for lying to the police and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Firstly Koby then later Jai were released with all charges dropped. Jai spent 10 months in prison though before the trial happened.

Perhaps one of the positive things that the Bra Boys do in the film in when they apologise to the Lebanese community when the riots where happening in Cronulla, New South Wales. They are showing that they had no part in the riots and are very accepting of other cultures. I think that while this could be genuine and what they are really like it could have also just been to make themselves look better in front of the public.

I don’t think that this documentary was at all a way to promote themselves because they started filming the documentary before a lot of these events happened. I think that maybe by making this documentary there names would become more well known but I don’t think it was the sole reason for making it. Overall I enjoyed the documentary as it was enjoyable for a documentary which I don’t usually find too interesting.

Candice, GYC

"Bra Boys" is set in the Sydney beach side suburb of Maroubra and it focuses on the culture that Maroubra Beach has created. "Bra Boys" is a tribe – they don't like to be thought of as a gang – that have each others back in the financial struggle that some of the families have. The story is centered around the Abberton family, as Russ said, with the film being written and directed by famous surfer brother Sunny Abberton. Their alcoholic mother and her violent boyfriend brought up the brothers, which resulted in the brothers congregating at their Nan's house. The brothers were brought up not only as brothers but as best friends who used the beach as an escapism from their less than prefect life. The film also follows the murder of Anthony Hines and the involvement and trail of Jai and Koby Abberton. But Sunny does not only concentrate on just his own family, but how Maroubra and the "Bra Boys" came to be, as well as introducing other people important to him like his apprentice surfer. Like any surfer needs to Sonny inserts a lot of amazing surfing footage, some quite dangerous and tense, which ultimately is the most riveting part of the film. Though the film is not without its fault, you could imagine a man proud to announce he would never divulge information about his brother, couldn't write, direct and most likely produce a film that wasn't biased. The background behind the murder of Anthony Hines seems to be extremely selective, they of course never initiated any violence and they appear to almost be a very peaceful and passive surf tribe. This seems highly unlikely and I think the brother makes a movie that he would want to see. Often the cinematography, if you could call it that was a bit rough, sometimes only with half faces on camera. But it does set the mood for the rough tribe that is the bra boys. The folky surf music and often interesting interviews provide an entertaining and insightful window into the lives of these bra boys, even if it is a very blurred window. I highly recommend it.