“Lords of Dogtown” Not entirely gnarly

Do you like skateboarding and, if so, would you like to know more about the history of professional skateboarding? If you answered no to either question, “Lords of Dogtown” is not for you. It is a skateboarding movie with lots (and I mean lots) of skateboarding action. Though there are good performances and excellent direction from Catherine Hardwicke, you have to be a die hard fan of thrashing (that’s a term for skateboarding) to really love this film.

Set in the mid to late 1970s, the story focuses on three friends in Venice Beach, California. Tony Alva lives with his sister and his dad and though his dad doesn’t want him to end up a ditchdigger, Tony skips school to surf and skate with his friends. Jay Adams lives with his seemingly drug-addled mother played by Rebecca DeMornay. He skates because he is a latchkey kid who likes to take chances. Stacy Peralta is the outsider of the group. He skates but doesn’t come from a broken background. Skip, the head of the Zephyr skateboarding team, feels that Peralta isn’t a pirate like the rest of them because he has a part time job and wears a watch. Peralta, the writer of this film, proves his worth to the team by winning a skating competition where the Zephyr skating style turns the skating world on its ear.

What follows is Alva, Adams and Peralta winning more competitions and getting increasingly popular. The Zephyr team, or Z-Boys as they were called, become famous and get their pictures in magazines and soon have sponsors seeking them out to join their teams. Alva chases the riches, Adams starts hanging out with Latino gang members and Peralta, the last to join the Z-boys is also the last to leave. Unlike most sports movies, there is no main goal that the characters are shooting for, no “I’ll see you at the Nationals, punk!” and no obvious protagonist or antagonist. This makes the movie very hard to classify, which is why I have such mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, most of the performances were very good. Heath Ledger did a remarkable job as Skip, a surf/skate rat who began to accept the responsibilities of excelling in his craft. Unfortunately, he was left in the dust as his proteges all left to make money. Emile Hirsch, last seen in the grossly underrated “The Girl Next Door,” once again turns in an excellent performance as Adams. Though the script left holes in Adams’ story, Hirsch’s nuanced performance lets the viewer know that there is more going on beneath the surface. The one weak link was John Robinson as Peralta and its not entirely his fault. The character of Peralta isn’t given that much to do and if his back story was a little bland compared to the others, Peralta the screenwriter wasn’t going to lie to make it more exciting.

I also think that Tony Hawk’s cameo as a starstruck astronaut meeting Peralta was very funny and one of the highlights of the film.

Hardwicke, whose last film was “Thirteen,” once again give us the seedy side of California and it is beautiful in it’s ugliness. She also captures the skateboarding action very well. As the boys race through traffic, the audience is taken on a whirlwind ride and given a sense of the speed, the thrill and the danger.

As pretty as some scenes are to look at, “Lords of Dogtown” loses momentum in places and has a hard time picking itself up again.

At one point in the film, Adams says, “It’ll be like we’re on summer vacation for the next 20 years.” The film kind of feels like a 20 year long summer vacation, fun for the most part but also aimless and a little boring as well.

• *1/2