The tagline for Matthew McConaughey’s latest film is “Love and waves, that’s what we need in these dark days.” Finally, a movie star who isn’t afraid to tackle the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression! Well, not exactly — Surfer, Dude quietly made its way into theaters in early September, after Hollywood’s tidal wave of summer blockbusters had receded but before the events of September 14 wiped out all hope that the current economic recession would ebb anytime soon. (By the by, how come it’s called a recession if it hits average Americans like a hurricane?) After three weeks in a grand total of 69 theaters, Surfer, Dude’s total box-office gross was $52,132, which probably didn’t leave McConaughey or his filmmaker bros feeling too stoked.

A limited release in 69 theaters for a foreign film or a documentary is one thing, but a microscopic release like that for a Matthew McConaughey stoner comedy is something else. Speaking of documentaries, Surfer, Dude was directed by S.R. Bindler, who helmed the documentary Hands on a Hard Body in 1997 but has no other directing credits listed on IMDB between then and 2008. McConaughey’s production company, j.k. livin, helped produce Hands on a Hard Body and has its hands all over Surfer, Dude, and according to McConaughey in the behind-the-scenes featurette included on the DVD, he’s known Bindler since they were 15. Bindler, why didn’t you just let Matthew cheat off you in high school? Now you’re going to be under his thumb for the rest of your life.

McConaughey says in the featurette that making Surfer, Dude was “the most fulfilling, creative experience I’ve ever had.” Shooting a movie in Malibu with your friends does sound like a nice way to spend 28 days in the spring, but whatever fulfillment McConaughey got out of the experience doesn’t translate to the screen. Surfer, Dude is a comedy, but it isn’t funny. Unless you’re high, I guess. Since the film was shot for only $6 million, I wouldn’t be surprised if pro-hemp costars Woody Harrelson and Willie Nelson were paid in weed. (In lieu of weed or cash, Scott Glenn accepted teeth. Judging by his smile, you can never have too many.)

For the most part Surfer, Dude just sits there on the screen for 85 minutes waiting for a wave of laughter or excitement to arrive, much like its hero, Steve Addington (McConaughey), a superstar “soul surfer” who returns to his Malibu home for the summer only to find that the waves have suddenly disappeared. (To qualify as a soul surfer, you must renounce all cell phones, you can only watch your old surfing highlights on Super-8 film, and your hair-restoration medicine must be totally organic. Oh, and it helps if you have a surfing double for your surfing scenes, of which Surfer, Dude has precious few.) He gives up pot and sex, hoping to appease the gods of surfing, but nothing works. Without waves, Addington is adrift.

Meanwhile, a former surfer named Eddie Zarno (Jeffrey Nordling), who’s now a reality TV and video game producer, has taken over Addington’s sponsorship contracts and wants him to be part of his Real World-type reality show starring the world’s top surfers. He also wants Addington to lend his longboard skills to a virtual-reality game called Free Surfer. (You know he’s a jerk from the get-go because his name starts with a Z. Kneel before Zarno …) Addington just wants to surf and refuses to be a part of Zarno’s projects, but once the sleazebag cuts off his credit flow, Addington becomes desperate, especially with no waves in sight.

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