The Lords of Dogtown Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)June 6th, 2005
Lords of Dogtown
reviewed by Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
rating: 2 out of 4
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Cast: John Robinson, Emile Hirsch, Heath Ledger, Victor Rasuk, Nikki Reed
Screenplay: Stacy Peralta
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (drug and alcohol content, sexuality, violence, language and reckless behavior-all involving teens)
The problem with Lords of Dogtown lies in its approach to the material. Written by Stacy Peralta, one of the three "lords" mentioned in the title, the film seems to want to tell a story about rebellion, teenagers, and skateboarding, but this novel effort is eclipsed by box office pressures of the Summer film release season. The big wigs at the distributors don't want an art-house film on their hands during June, they want high-profile adrenaline charged action that will pull teenagers in by the droves. This pressure probably led to a neutering of the original screenplay and the old snip-snip of explicit content which would make the film R, instead of a profit-producing PG-13. Consequently, Lords of Dogtown is a "bleh"-quality sports film that only brushes the surface of its potential.
Skip (Heath Ledger) is the king of Dogtown, which in reality is Venice, California. It's the sixties, and surfing in California is a rapidly growing fad. Skip owns Zephyr surf shop, dedicated to the philosophy of allowing his workers to surf and work on their own hours and terms, consequently leaving him with the bills piling up. An idea sparks when new skateboard wheels arrive at his shop and open up the possibilities of skateboarding becoming a sport, not a hobby for when the waves are flat. He decides to start the Zephyr Skate Team. Hired for the team, among others, are Jay (Emile Hirsch), Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk), and Sid (Michael Angarano). The only one with a smooth temper and a fair head on his shoulders, Stacy (John Robinson), is also the only one left out of the team. But this all changes when Zephyr attends their first Skate competition. Amping up the tunes and transforming the gymnastic-like sport into one of style, Team Zephyr lands Jay the bronze and Tony with a potential gold had he not picked a fight with an opposing coach. However, Stacy decides to show up without a team and ends up with the silver, proving his talent to Skip. Now with Team Zephyr complete, Jay, Tony, and Stacy take on the Skateboarding world and make their way to the top. But when a reporter from "Skateboarder Magazine" does a cover story on the boys everything changes.
What's so agonizing about Lords is all that it actually has going for it. There's obviously great potential here, but the screenplay just never pulls through. Most noticeably, the time period director Catherine Hardwicke creates is nearly flawless. The soundtrack features great tunes from the era of sixties hard rock, instead of a cop-out rap/techno backdrop that haunts many of these period sports films nowadays. The town of Venice is also stylishly re-created. The sets achieve the mood of a laid-back surfer town with postage-stamp developments of a suburbia from the fifties. I found it easy to sink into Hardwicke's world of Dogtown and believe every inch of it.
Also impressive is Heath Ledger's performance. Even though the screenplay never completes his story, as it does with the "Lords", Ledger's character is the most convincing. Shaving his Australian accent, Ledger holds a perfect drunken Californian drawl the entire film. And of all the characters, his is the most dynamic. His character isn't bound by the stereotypes the others are. He's pathetic, motivating, rousing, obnoxious, rewarding, and loveable all at once. He's essentially human. He's the sort of guy we all know. The guy we aren't quite sure if we love or if we hate. If for nothing else, Lords of Dogtown deserves a bit of recognition for Ledger's portrayal of Skip.
But Skip aside, Lords' characters are flat. Their written as one-dimensional stereotypes that never grow or react to their environments. Also, none are all that likeable. Even Stacy, the kind one, is sometimes too kind and eventually ends up abandoning his roots for fame and fortune. We're constantly being alienated from these characters because the story never allows us to like or even relate to them. They're kept the one-dimensional characters they started as, even if their hair-dos may have changed.
How can a film about the sixties, rebellion, teenager-hood, skateboarding, and revolution be rated PG-13? Since when was the rebellious behavior of the sixties a tame subject? Lords of Dogtown likes to believe it was. They try their best, they really do, but with a PG-13 rating strapping it down, what chance did it really ever have? Language is kept absent, sex is suggested but not witnessed, drugs and alcohol are the same, and mostly, Lords skips around every aspect of the sixties that made it what it's known for. This castration of material makes the film disappointingly less believable. And with one-dimensional characters and some poor acting on the parts of Tony, Jay, and Stacy, Lords of Dogtown is little more than an afternoon endeavor for only the most hardcore of skaters.
-Sam Osborn of www.samseescinema.com
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