Lords of Venice Beach

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2005)

LORDS OF DOGTOWN (2005) *** John Robinson, Emile Hirsch,Victor Rasuk, Heath Ledger, Rebecca De Mornay, Michael Angarano, Nikki Reed, William Mapother, Julio Oscar Mechoso, Johnny Knoxville, America Ferrera, Elden Henson, Eddie Cahill, Sofia Vergara. (Dir: Catherine Hardwicke)
The Lords of Venice Beach
A few years back skateboarding legend Stacy Peralta chronicled his lifestyle and groundbreaking extreme sport with the awesome documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" showing the origins of the pastime from surfing to concrete daredevilry with deft aplomb. In Catherine Hardwicke's ballsy, feckless drama Peralta gets to requiem his co-horts by depicting his heady youth with all its splendor (and pitfalls).
Peralta  who wrote the screenplay  is depicted in his teens in the mid-70s by Robinson, a nice young kid whose shyness was belied by his gifted skateboarding skills and the enclave of those who excelled at it in the wanton exuberance of California's skate-rat Venice Beach where his pals, Jay Adams (Hirsch quickly becoming a Leonardo DiCaprio star-in-the making) and Tony Alva (Rasuk, the star of the indie hit "Raising Victor Vargas") attempted to make names for themselves among the surfing population including surfer enthusiast and entrepreneur Skip Engblom (Ledger getting in touch with his inner Val Kilmer with stony goofy perfection) whose skateboard shop, Zephyr, became a kind of haven for the local teens to hang between hanging ten.
Then one glorious day the kids are given new polyurethane wheels for their skateboards and with a few innovations make for some radical changes and discovering the empty pools of Southern California to be a perfect place to advance their athleticism to amateur (and later professional) competitions.
The film focuses on the three friends (and another one, Sid, a rich kid with an inner ear problem that ruins his chances to be great, played by Angarano) and their problems and dreams equally (Jay's mom  played nicely with ravaged beauty by De Mornay  is a stoner who is slowly downward spiraling their life to nowhere; Tony's tough yet loving father instilling some hard knocked life lessons; etc.) but mainly exhibits the adrenalizing joy the trio share when all they want is to surf air and live on summer vacation for the next 20 years.
As the years progress and the skateboard craze comes to a head the three buddies learn that getting what you want has its price. The crazily self-assured Alva is heading for a nasty fall when he goes into business with the pimpified nemesis of Skip's, huckster manager Topper Burks (humorously played by Knoxville as a first cousin to Kid Rock) promising him all sorts of glories and riches. Meanwhile the disillusioned Jay resorts to gangs and punk rock to exert his inner demons while Peralta becomes so mainstreamed that he even appears on "Charlie's Angels" (!)
Written by Peralta, the film hits home the lost youth the skaters faced and the pressures to maintain their thrill-seeking techniques while attempting to have a life is nicely balanced with the carefree, devil-may-care recklessness of growing up is all about: rebel against everything without losing everything; a truly tricky maneuver.
Filmed with a fluid, on-the-money vibe by Hardwicke (who helmed the indie hit "Thirteen")  a self-proclaimed surfing/skating enthusiast herself and gaining the gig after executive producer filmmaker David Fincher bailed on helmsing due to financial and stylistic disagreements on making the film a reality  achieves an entertaining, never dull biopic disguised as an extreme sports documentary that echoes Peralta's earlier work yet still shines thanks to her young, exuberant cast and excellent you-are-there cinematography by Elliot Davis.
For someone like yours truly who has no athletic skill or desire to try to break every bone in his body this film truly works on all levels of participating without actually breaking a sweat (or aforementioned skeletal part) and should thrill those who feel the same or inspire those who do not.