A Gnarly Nostalgia Trip

Rating: 8/10 (1 October 2005)

'Lords of Dogtown' ain't 'Citizen Kane,' but it's a hell of a lot of fun--a gnarly nostalgia trip for aging skaters, and a relatable time-capsule for the current generation of asphalt wave riders.
After seeing Stacy Peralta's 'Dogtown and Z-Boys' documentary, it might be easy to write off 'Lords of Dogtown' as an unnecessary exercise, and it's certainly true that much of the 'history' of the Zephyr team and its impact on skateboarding's transition from a trivial novelty to a cultural phenomenon and an elite 'extreme' sport is glossed over in this film. But it's a mistake to compare the two: 'Lords of Dogtown' isn't meant to be a faithful history of the rise of skateboarding in Venice, but, rather, a narrative about three friends whose shared love of getting stoked on wheels and waves took them places they could never have imagined.
No doubt, the film has an air of hero worship. It's easy to see from the special features and director's commentary that, at heart, Catherine Hardwick is still a true-blue surf-and-skate Betty, and is still totally in love with the idealized image of skinny, shirtless, long-haired boys who party hard, raise hell, and ditch school to chase waves. 'Lords of Dogtown' is, more than anything else, another 'Endless Summer' or 'Big Wednesday,' made a little more thrilling by the fact that it's pretty much a true story.
What makes the film most appealing is watching the three leads going through familiar adolescent trials along with more personally difficult experiences. Tony Alva (Victor Raskub)--the sport's first great showman--is driven to prove himself by a fear of inadequacy largely driven by the prejudice he suffers as a Mexican-American. Peralta (John Robinson)--who went on to become one of the sport's most beloved stars and its most successful businessman (he is also the screenwriter for the film)--is drawn as the nice kid who is somewhat ostracized by his tougher, more defiant friends for such sins as wearing a watch, holding down a steady job, and occasionally attempting to get to school on time, but his real crisis is realizing how different he is from his friends and how much more pronounced those differences become as they grow older. But the film's heart is Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch), who may very well have been the most gifted of the three but whose emotional wounds and defiant spirit prevented him from taking advantage of the same opportunities that propelled Peralta and Alva to wealth and stardom.
The three young actors are mostly superb. Raskub is probably the weakest--he is given the least room to develop Alva as more than hotheaded, insecure, and ego-driven--but he's appealing and a lot of fun to watch, and he's persuasively athletic. Robinson is a bit of a blank slate (given that the real Stacy Peralta wrote the story, it's not surprising that his character seems more the observer than the participant), but he's a warm presence and the concern and empathy he feels for his friends is obvious. Emile Hirsch is the best, and has the most complex role. He carries it off well; his transformation from Z-boy to Chicano hoodlum seems abrupt, but that owes more to flaws in pacing and direction than to weakness in the performance. Indeed, the most obvious technical flaw of the film is its pacing--the passage of time is hard to mark; the transitions which take place in the boys' lives happen rather suddenly, and changes in their circumstances--the abandonment of the Zephyr team by its stars, Engblom's apparent decline into alcoholism, Peralta's and Alva's rise to stardom and Adams' retreat from it--all seem a little random and disorganized.
If there is any thematic flaw to the film, it may be that Hardwicke's affection for the by-gone heyday of the mid-'70s overwhelms some of the harsh realities of her story. But the film is redeemed by its worship of the cult of skating and wave riding. When the three friends regroup for pool sessions at the home of their old friend Sid (who seems to be the movie's source of comic relief until he is felled by a brain tumor and left confined to a wheel-chair), the common love and the freedom they share carving around the big blue bowl is absolutely persuasive. I haven't been on a board in ten years, but I felt my heart quicken as if I were back there again, with friends I've long-since lost touch with, caring about nothing more than the sheer joy of pulling off a killer trick or catching the fleeting sense of weightlessness getting vertical. The cinematography is occasionally a bit shaky, but the 'skate-cam' shots (which were done by Bones Brigade legend Lance Mountain) are sublime, and the superb soundtrack of classic rock keeps the adrenalin flowing. The biggest irony, of course, is that the moves being pulled off by the Z-boys which were so unbelievably radical back in 1975 are so basic today thanks to years of advances in technique and board, truck, and wheel technology that it's kind of funny watching people cheer for stuff that wouldn't raise an eyebrow at a modern skate competition. But comparing Tony Alva to Tony Hawk is like comparing Babe Ruth to Barry Bonds (except that Tony Hawk isn't a huge jerk).
Many have criticized this film for neglecting to include all of the original Z-boys in its story, but there are far too many of the original Dogtown old-schoolers making cameos in the film to think that it bothered them too much to see the story revolve around Alva, Adams, and Peralta (all three of whom have quick cameos--a few second-generation skaters are there as well, including Christian Hosoi and, of course, the great Tony Hawk in a hilariously self-effacing appearance).