Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Maroubra is now gentrifying suburb, the NSW state government (Liberal = conservative)has sold off the Long Bay jail site mentioned in this documentary; to developers for apartments. And those multi million dollar apartments won't be for housing commission 'boys' as many of this film's participants were . . . in the day.The doco was re-shown recently on free to air television. It reinforced that sport -- surfing and ruby league in this case -- provides a way out of poverty for some who otherwise wouldn't have a path, in contrast to the drug financed, homicidal chaos that is today's (2016) American gang culture. Although it was interesting to see members of the Comanchero motor bike gang referenced as interlocutors in the context of the Cronulla 'race' riots -- which didn't spread to Maroubra on the scale expected. Another vignette highlighted an interviewee's observation that group recognition was ethnic and colour blind.An interviewee opines in a further vignette that; the culture of the area and the group, benefited some group members because it increased their tolerance for high risk endeavours e.g. big wave surfing. Early on, in a telling interview, a university professor explains the predicament of local kids caused by the policing practice of fining juveniles for loitering and other misdemeanours -- as seen in Ferguson USA (2015). The fines mount up to a couple of thousand dollars by the time kids are 16 (legal driving age) which means they can't get a license and consequently that avenue (driving for local delivers)of social and economic participation is foreclosed.Is the individualism of the atomic family socially useful? The doco highlighted the support a multi-generational family can provide, with in this case, the grandmother offering a long term physically safe environment with food set against the boys mother's dysfunctional and unsafe predicament.A cult classic for anthropologists, sociologists and voyeurs.

I absolutely loved this documentary, it shows the guys for who they are and where they came from. The passion they have for surfing and the people they care for is unbelievable especially when you listen to the lives they have all had. I'd never heard about the Bra Boys until I was on holiday last year, my sister and I had undertaken surf lessons from a guy a couple of years previously. We asked what happened to him and were told he was promoting a documentary about the community he grew up in, it was then I found out Sunny Abberton taught me to surf!! After being in Sydney last July I decided to take a visit down to Maroubra, I wasn't there long, but just knowing I was in the place that Sunny had learnt to surf made me want to surf again even more, unfortunately where i live thats not always possible.But this documentary was definitely worth the time it took trying to find a place that sold it! (even the amount I had to pay for it)

When the word documentary is mentioned the words boring and horrible pop into my head. I imagine wild life images with extremely boring narrators' voices that will put any normal person to sleep. The Bra Boys is anything but this sleep filled image. Filled with action and adventure it tells the story of notorious Abberton brothers, Jai, Koby and Sunny. The narration is by the manly Russell Crowe.In summary this movie is the Bra Boys response to everything in the media about the notorious beach gang in Maroubra. The world finally gets to hear the Bra Boys version about Crunalla riot, Mark Matthew's 21st, and the murder of Anthony Hines. Maybe even more importantly it show's how these events affected a gang of boys, who in the media is portrayed to have no feeling at all. Yes it's highly bias, but wasn't the media's side of the story as well? It is shot in a very amateur way and in parts goes on too much. A lot like the boys are bragging about the things the get up to. There's a lack of women, and in some cases a lack of clothes. If you can get past these minor factors it's a good watch.What is interesting and not deliberately put in is how well these boys have actually done to become at least half decent. Yes their idea of fun is jumping of a cliff a light, or bashing someone to a pulp, but at least they try to get the most out the life they have been given. They do the most they can to use surfing to get them out of the rut of their lives and then become good role models to the younger boys in the group, or at least compared to their home life. It's rather touching to watch considering what a lot of them cop at home. It's touching to see how much the Bra Boys support these boys and how much the gang is truly their family. It's very confronting because the viewer starts to realize they can't dismiss these kids as trouble makers, there's just so much more to their story.They add to the story by showing a lot of Australian culture and the history behind it. There's some humour included when talking about the laws put in place that included men wearing skirts and other such ridiculous things the Maroubra authorities put in place.This is why the film a worthwhile watch. It helps people see why these boys do such things. It shows a bigger picture of what the gang mentality is all about. It stirs empathy inside of the viewer.What does get old in the movie is the amount of fighting that is put into the film. For a 'defence film' it was a wrong choice because it makes them look horrible. It's like they can't make up their mind if they want to be strong and tough, or terribly misunderstood. I guess there giving us the whole of themselves not just the filtered through good bits, and then it's the viewer job to decide how exactly they should stereotype these guys.Nicole GYC

Bra Boys (as in residents of the Sydney beach-side suburb of Maroubra rather than intimate female apparel) may well represent further evidence of a newly emerging style of Australian movie making. Something akin to what punk and grunge were to pop music of the 1990's.The first example of this possible new trend to come to my attention was "Kenny", in which the Crocodile Dundee character was resurrected as a dunny man rather than an eco-tourism guide. Engaging, honest, low brow and yet wise and disarming in a laid back, rough diamond sort of way.Whereas Kenny was apparently an example of spontaneous cinematic generation, Bra Boys was given a certain amount of mentoring by Russell Crowe and the people responsible for the Australian Broadcasting Commission's excellent documentary series, Australian Story. The ABC can lay hold to a proud tradition in this regard. They made it possible for a group of university review graduates to lay bare the sanctimonious foolishness of television news and current affairs programmes with their Front Line series a few years ago.The structure of Bra Boys is unpredictable and marvelous to behold. It has obvious antecedents in that genre of surfing films that started with Endless Summer back in the 1960's when surfies wore suits and ties when they travelled on commercial airlines. The Bra Boys were natural candidates for roles in the evolution of that genre into grand spectacles of surfers being towed into lethally dangerous waves the size of waterfalls.But Bra Boys is also a documentary on a prevention of a miscarriage of justice by the police and legal system. Its style is terse and economical with words, but it touches on the background to big news events that the media did not provide. The Bra Boys sudden appearance as peace makers after the internationally documented 2005 Cronulla race riots is given some passing explanation.All this plus a story of a worthy matriarchal figure who provided support and understanding to her hoodlums with hearts of gold. Yes it is probably more hagiography than hard bitten journalism, but it manages to convey the background to big events so much more effectively than the media hacks seem to be capable of doing.I am told the film suffers from audio and visual defects of a technical nature - I was too engrossed to notice.