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Common Sense Note

Parents need to know the film includes teen smoking, drinking, drug use, foul language, sexual activity, and violence. The heroes are 1970's California rebels who essentially invent freestyle skateboarding, then confront a barrage of commercial contracts and crass promoters, instant celebrity, high stakes competitions, and insecurities among themselves. Some of the kids also deal with money problems at home, single and absent parents, and romantic pressures. One skater learns late that he's suffering from brain cancer, and his post-surgery appearance, surely gallant, may also be distressing for younger viewers.

Families who see this movie can discuss the many ways that kids can rebel against authority and convention and what does and doesn't appeal to them about skater culture. Families can talk about what is and isn't compelling about rebellion. How does the movie alternately celebrate and question the main characters' choices? What does selling out mean to kids? And what are kids willing to sacrifice either to make money or follow their dreams?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs

Poised to be great, fast fun, this movie is too often slowed by clichés. The most thrilling moments in LORDS OF DOGTOWN feature skateboard wheels. More precisely, cameras mounted on and even under skateboards, so that the whirring of wheels, slamming over pavement, and hurtling headlong into air seem immediate and vital.

But aside from this stunty camerawork, Catherine Hardwicke's second feature (her first was the affecting Thirteen) tells a conventional story. Based on the real life adventures of the same skaters at the center of writer Stacy Peralta's documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, in turn based on a 1999 Spin article and Peralta's own skateboarding experiences, the fictionalized film is less about cultural resistance and wild riding in empty swimming pools than about capitulation.

This theme is focused through three wannabe Venice Beach surfers turned champion skaters -- Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk), Peralta (John Robinson), and Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch) -- as well as their initial mentor, scruffy Zephyr team founder Skip (Heath Ledger, whose performance draws on Val Kilmer's tic-ish gravity). A longtime surfer and angry alcoholic, Skip sucks his words through his teeth and preaches against selling out to lucrative commercialism (this even as he uses the team he founds to promote his surfboard business).

The virtuoso skaters are laying the foundations for Tony Hawk (who appears briefly as an astronaut in one of the boys' photo ops), video games, and the X Games. Their visions of how they might leave lasting impressions differ. Skip plays loud music (Hendrix is a favorite), puts the (mostly boys) team through tough paces on their boards, and even provides them with a vague sense of belonging when he gives them matching t-shirts.

As the boys face their suddenly burgeoning fame (pretty girls in shorts, all-night parties, televised competitions, and endorsements), greed is incarnated by opportunistic promoter Topper (Johnny Knoxville pimped out to resemble Kid Rock). Jay is especially torn, as he wants to support his weary working mom (Rebecca De Mornay), but really doesn't want to have to sing the "Slinky" song to make money.

The movie's most compelling question is unresolvable, as in itself it replicates the problem of selling out, by further exploiting the success of Peralta's documentary. Skip, of all people, ends up looking like the heroic holdout, broke but determined to stay true to his vision -- always ready to surf, never overwhelmed by career.

Families who like this movie should see Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001), and might like the basketball coming of age movie Coach Carter. Thirteen is a more difficult but more effective movie, revealing the costs of rebelling by trying too hard to fit in.

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