These Wheels Get Jammed
LORDS OF DOGTOWN

RATING: C

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, John Robinson, Michael Angarano, Nikki Reed, Heath Ledger, Rebecca De Mornay, Johnny Knoxville. Music by Mark Mothersbaugh, Co-Producer, Ginger Sledge, Executive Producers Art Linson, David Fincher, Joe Drake. Written by Stacy Peralta. Produced by John Linson, Directed by Catherine Hardwicke.

Rated PG-13, Running Time 108 mins.,   1.85 to 1 Academy Standard Aspect Ratio.

"Lords of Dogtown" isn't an easy movie for me to review due to the fact that I am a diehard Z-Boy follower and an fan of veteran Stacy Peralta's 2001 documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys", as well as his insightful peek into surfing, last summer's "Riding Giants." On the one hand, this adaptation, a sophomore outing for production designer turned director Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen"), is a semi-decent little picture and on the other hand it fails to do what the documentary did so well. The difficult job of adapting their story to film belongs to none other than Peralta, which is surprising because he wrote the screenplay in "after-school special" fashion as if it happened to someone else and left out a lot of vivid details.

Like the documentary, "Lords of Dogtown" places the focus on three individuals: ego-driven fame seeker Tony Alva, the responsible Peralta, who became the most successful and went on to mentor skaters like Tony Hawk, and the most talented of them all, Jay Adams, who never treated their pastime as a career and eventually self-destructed. They are each successfully cast and played respectively by Victor Rasuk of "Raising Victor Vargas", John Robinson of "Elephant" and Emile Hirsh, veteran of such teen fare as "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" and "The Girl Next Door." What should have been a steady coast through the rise of the pioneers of the skateboard movement plays as a greatest hits package. These poor ghetto kids and one-time surfers of the ruins of Venice's Pacific Park Pier, are given the tools (poly urethane wheels) and the word from surf board designer Skip Emblem (an overacting Heath Ledger) to go forth and change the course of competitive free-style skateboarding.

Instead of providing insight into the inspiration behind the boys' radical moves - Hawaiian surfer Larry Bertlemann in Hal Jepsen's 1975 film "SuperSession" - that won them awards at the 1975 Del Mar Nationals, the film just shows the boys practicing on the streets of Venice in typical montage style, eventually stunning the contestants and judges at Del Mar. We're left to assume that they picked up these moves from the street, not that there was actual ingenuity behind them. In the late 1970's California's drought served as a midwife to the skateboard revolution as hundreds of swimming pools along the Los Angeles basin were left empty and unused. The Z-boys used their skills with riding waves to ride the interior surfaces of pools, giving birth to the vertical styles we're familiar with today.  The pool sessions are lovingly re-created, but in no way do they hold a candle to the archival footage of Glen Friedman and photo-journalist Craig Stecyk.

Although we get a chance to see how some of the Z-boys found commercial success, the impact of their innovations is never demonstrated. The Z-Boys and the original DogTown crew are household names and living legends amongst skaters, but to the average viewer we're never shown why. Instead, Peralta's script focuses a fictional love triangle between himself and Adams over Alva's sister played by Hardwicke's protégé Niki Reed. Ledger's Engblom tries to take over the early scenes like a force of nature while Stecyk, whose coverage put the Z-boys on the map in magazines and co-founded the Zephyr surf shop, is barely a peripheral character. Even worse is that the driving force behind the Zephyr team, Hawaiian Jeff Ho, is completely eliminated from the story all together, while Sid (Michael Angarano) a real life cancer victim briefly referenced in the documentary is made into one of the main characters. Additional support is provided by Rebecca DeMornay as Jay's trashy space-headed mom and Johnny Knoxville making a real "Jackass" of himself as a character based on Bunker Spreckles, a rich high rolling friend of Tony Alva.

Hardwicke again collaborates with noted cinematographer Eliot Davis who has a talent for gorgeous nighttime imagery, but the problem is the camera moves too briskly and the film in no way feels as if it's set in the 70's.  Even the well put together soundtrack doesn't help. With three incredible and proven talents cast as the leads its amazing that we really don't get to know these characters at all. There is a degree of insight into Alva's strict upbringing that resulted in his radical rock star attitude, Peralta's responsible working class demeanor and Adams' destructive nature that led to his f.u. attitude towards commercialized skateboarding. Unfortunately it's all briefly touched upon in exchange for re-creating visual sequences that made the documentary so stimulating. The archival footage in the documentary would not have been as powerful without the testimonials of the actual players as grown men.

Early in the film, Hirsch's Adams states "We're gonna be on summer vacation for the next twenty years," something the real Adams only realized in retrospect. Much of the power is lost without seeing and hearing middle-aged men reflect on the lifestyle that either made them rich or passed them by. The film is a bold effort and missed opportunity with only a few engaging aspects, including spotting actual adult Z-boys in cameo roles as well as Peralta directing "himself" in a "Charlie's Angels" appearance. For those unfamiliar with the story, it's a decently acted piece of pop entertainment for young audiences, but for die-hards, the documentary has the real juice and they should stick with it.