Movies have been around for more than 100 years and have always been the best way for people to come together and enjoy something they all like, whether that be horror, action, comedy, or in this case, a true drama story about skaters from Venice Beach.
The movie being reviewed is Lords of Dogtown, a 2005 drama film directed by Catherine Hardwicke. I am reviewing this movie as it is my personal favorite movie, as well as a great movie in general. It is a true story about 3 teenage skateboarders from Venice Beach. It progresses with the beginning showing the three being regular, poor surfers, and skaters becoming wealthy skaters as they become sponsored. They battle the hardships of greed over friendship.
The movie starts off with three teenagers sneaking out of their houses to go surfing, Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, and Jay Adams. Jay launches off of a house with his board and over some homeless people as he skates towards the beach. Tony is the more daredevil of the group, so he bombs an intersection but gets caught up on gravel. Stacy is considered the outsider as he at first isn’t that great of a skater, so he bikes his way to the beach. That is really the beginning of the movie, just introducing the characters in a way that foreshadows later on in the movie.
As the three meet up at the beach, they find that there are others at their spot, and you come to find out that those guys work at a local surf shop, with Skip Engblom, the owner of the shop. After they all surf the very low tide, you get a montage of the three skating through the city in a great moment where they skate in between cars and hold onto a bus. It cuts to the surf shop where Skip is meeting with a businessman who is trying to sell “oil wheels” that can grip the wall and allow you to surf with a skateboard. Skip tries to tell the guy that “this is a surf shop” and he basically has no need for skateboard wheels, but he ends up just taking the wheels.
Soon after, the three come through the door of the skate shop, where you meet Sid, a kid who works at the surf shop. Sid explains to the guys about the wheels. Skip then takes all of the skaters he knows and shows off the new wheels at a skate spot. “Who’s got bad karma?” Everyone fights for the board with the new wheels with the winner being Tony and he tries out the wheels first. Then everyone tries out the wheels. It cuts to later in the day and everyone is skating. Skip is talking to the guys we met before during the surfing scene and he is telling them that he wants to set up a skate team, but the guys are telling him that they “just sell surfboards” and that’s it. Skip doesn’t listen and the next day he makes the team.
Skip tells everyone that they made the team, except for Stacy, tying back to him not being that good of a skater. Jay goes to tell Stacy that he didn’t make the team, as he wasn’t there to hear it. Soon Skip enters the team into a skate competition, and guess who shows up to the competition, Stacy. Stacy beat out all of the team and managed to take first place. After the competition, Skip goes up to Stacy and hands him the team shirt, implying that he is now on the team.
Everything goes great with the team from there, until they are offered to be on the front page of a magazine. That is when everything goes downhill. Not for themselves individually, but for their friendship. The team is cut down to the main three, Jay, Stacy, and Tony. They all begin to not skate for themselves but for the money. They feed on greed and they turn on each other. They end up quitting the team and joining a new sponsored team, except for Jay. Stacy created his own brand, Powell Peralta. Tony made his own brand, Alva. Jay joined no group but turned to his past and joined a gang.
It wasn’t until Sid had gotten cancer that they would all become friends again. The last few shots of the movie were of them skating a bowl together.
Overall, I thought this movie was great and very underrated. Being my favorite movie I have watched it hundreds of times and have not found much that I would have changed. The only thing I did not get was why they made Skip a completely different person, from when they introduced him to the second time you see him. He goes from a great surfer who seems nice to a drunk who makes fun of the kid who works for him.
I would rate this movie an 8.5/10, I liked it and I liked how it foreshadowed the characters from the very beginning and sort of gave a Cinderella story of rags to riches with them going from basically nothing to being the most well-known skaters at the time. It was also great how they showed Jay not turning to greed as from the very beginning he only used his money to get his mom out of her terrible job that kept her from morning to night.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who reads this as it is great to watch when you want something to focus on or something you just want to have in the background.