Sydney's notorious surf gang turns tide of violence into big-screen adulation

Maroubra Beach is only a few miles from Bondi, but the working-class Sydney suburb - home to a maximum-security jail and a massive sewage plant as well as some superlative waves - is a different world.

Maroubra may lack Bondi's glamour, but it has a fame of its own, thanks to a notorious surf gang, the Bra Boys. The gang, led by the Abberton brothers, was for many years a byword for tribalism and violence. Now, thanks to a film narrated by Hollywood actor Russell Crowe, the Bra Boys' image has been transformed.

Box office takings on the first day of release broke all records for a local documentary. The premiere attracted clean-cut celebrities such as Ian Thorpe, the Olympic swimming champion, and Nikki Webster, a pop singer and model. Crowe joined the heavily tattooed Abberton brothers on the red carpet in Sydney.

The film tells how the siblings, born to a heroin-addicted mother and three different fathers, grew up in poverty and squalor. Surfing was their escape. They formed a gang, naming it "Bra" partly after their neighbourhood and partly after the street slang for brother. They swore loyalty to each other and their mates, and jealously guarded their waves and their territory.

The oldest brother, Sunny, now 34, who wrote and co-directedBra Boys with Macario De Souza, became a professional surfer. Koby, 28, is renowned as one of the world's most fearless big-wave riders.

Along the way, the "boys" acquired an iron reputation. Allegations of violence, drug deals and organised crime followed them as they surfed their way to fame and wealth. In 2003, Jai Abberton, now 32, shot a fellow gang member, Tony Hines, in the back of the head, then dumped his body over a cliff. He spent nearly two years in jail, but was released after convincing a jury that he acted in self-defence, certain that Hines was about to rape his girlfriend and then murder them both.

Koby was given a suspended nine-month sentence last year for lying to police about the killing. A charge of being an accessory to murder was dropped.

With the case behind them, and Sunny's film to promote, the brothers are painting themselves as role models. They have set up a charity, Streets to the Beach, to bring children from deprived Sydney suburbs to the surf and show them what they can achieve.

"We were just lucky to live by the beach, otherwise who knows what would have happened?" Koby said in a recent interview. "The beach has been the saviour of so many kids in Australia." Crowe applauds those sentiments. A bit of a hard man himself, his short temper has landed him in public brawls. He threw a telephone at a hotel concierge in New York. The Abbertons met him through connections with a rugby league team that he part-owns, the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Koby said: "He believes in the struggle and he knew it was a story worth telling." Crowe is rumoured to have sent a tape of the film, which was four years in the making, to the director Ron Howard in the hope of interesting him in a feature adaptation."What I tried to do was instil the confidence to stick with their original intention, which was to make a documentary-length feature about their lives and who they are," Crowe said.

Last July, after his brush with the law, Koby was declared bankrupt, with debts of A$1m (£410,000). Now he has landed a $1m sponsorship deal with an American sunglasses company, has launched his own clothing line, and graces newspaper gossip columns, with rumours of liaisons with Paris Hilton and her fellow party girl Tara Reid.

Critics have accused the film of glorifying thuggery, and the type of "localism" that led to the December 2005 Cronulla riots, when white surfers attacked Lebanese-Australians visiting "their" beach.

Clifton Evers, a Sydney University academic and keen wave-rider, wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald that visitors to Maroubra risked being "bullied by the resident group of surfers". He said: "It can happen just for catching a wave they wanted, or for parking in a spot they have 'reserved'." Mr Evers said that Bra Boys ignored the gentrification of Maroubra, with its new cafes and expensive houses. "The film sucks you into an ugly world of surfing, localism, violence, mateship and masculinity," he wrote.

But Sunny, making his directorial debut, urged cinema-goers to watch the film with an open mind. "There are a lot of misconceptions about us," he said. "We wanted to show us in a real and honest light, show our story."