In the 1970s, a group of teenage surfers from a tough neighborhood known as “Dogtown” in Venice, California pioneered a revolutionary new style of skateboarding. Riding the waves at the Pacific Ocean Park pier, the Z-Boys, known for their aggressive style and hard street attitude, combined the death-defying moves of surfing with the art of skateboarding and became overnight sensations and local legends. With empty pools as their canvas, the Z-Boys paved the way to what is now referred to as “extreme sports” and created a lifestyle that spread infectiously to become a worldwide counterculture phenomenon. But all of this fame would take its toll on the friendships that they thought would last a lifetime as the sport that started out as an afternoon hobby turned into big business.
This should all make for a great film right? You can learn the real history of skateboarding. Or so it would seem. As skating remains extremely popular, Lords of Dogtown should be a huge hit. The problem is the film isn’t about the skaters your average-joe skater would be familiar with – outside of the name of Peralta, which most skaters associate with the old-school Powell-Peralta skateboards and founding the legendary “Bones Brigade” (Tony Hawk, Steve Caballero and Lance Mountain, to name a few).
What is extremely disconcerting is the fact that Lords of Dogtown is a fictionalized version of the documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys. It’s interesting to see legends like Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Stacy Peralta, but the interactions never mature enough on film for viewers to care. There is a lack of character development that makes the characters feel pedestrian. The actors are great and do the best with what they have – too bad they are given so little to work with. Emile Hirsch is especially good as Jay Adams. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises is Heath Ledger’s portrayal of Skip Engblom, the co-founder of Zephyr surfboard and skateboard shop. Ledger does the best stoned impression of Val Kilmer you may ever see.
Surely, Lords of Dogtown will appeal to all teens – girls will like the sexy leads and the guys will like the grittiness of old-school skating. However, the biggest problem with the film is its inability to show us why these people are legends. You never gather what it is that made them so special. Sure, they skated in pools, but so did other kids. Why were these guys the chosen ones? Why is anyone making a movie about them? That’s a huge void for those who have no idea who these guys were.
The handheld camera and jerky editing does its best to convey the insanity that was the ride of the Z-Boys. What Lords of Dogtown doesn’t quite convey is how great of an adventure it must have been being a part of this legendary crew.
+ Charlie Craine
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