Disjointed story, uninspired performances hobble 'Lords'

Rating: 4/10 (2 October 2005)

Stacey Peralta's documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" served as the springboard for "Lords of Dogtown," a fictionalized account of extreme skateboarding's birth. Poor teenagers from Dogtown, an area of Venice Beach, CA, emerged from relative obscurity to become superstars and make skateboarding into a true counterculture.
This is director Catherine Hardwicke's second feature. I really wanted to like her first film, 2003's "Thirteen," but like that effort "Dogtown" falls victim to some scattershot storytelling and poor direction.
Events happen with little explanation or background and characters do things that seem totally inconsistent with their past actions. The actors do what they can, but this ultimately seems like a textbook example of poor direction and screenplay resulting in a subpar product.
Heath Ledger, sporting fake teeth, scraggly hair and an everpresent cigarette, hams it up like an actor twice his age as Dogtown skateboard guru Skip Engblom. The main trio of teens, portrayed by Emile Hirsch, John Robinson and Victor Rasuk, are played as little more than caricatures, with no motivation for their performances. Michael Angronaro fares the best of all the actors, playing a doomed rich boy who longs to be part of the Dogtown culture.
It feels like there could have been a good dramatized feature made from this true story, but this is definitely not it. This deserved a director with a true knack for the visual and a screenplay devoid of clichés.