Skateboring

Lords of Dogtown (2005)
Columbia Pictures presents a Catherine Hardwicke film, starring Heath Ledger. Written by Stacy Peralta. 107m. PG-13 for drug and alcohol content, sexuality, violence, language and reckless behavior - all involving teens.

1.5 stars

I had gone to “Lords of Dogtown” at the urging of a friend, who had seen the original source material, a documentary, and had suggested this fictionalized account.

After exiting the theater – and finding myself totally unsatisfied by “Lords” – my friend mentioned how faithful the Hollywood version was to its predecessor, “Dogtown and Z-Boys.”

I was slightly enraged. In an effort to appropriately place the blame, I needed to look no farther than “Lords” writer Stacy Peralta.

While a member of the Zephyr skate team, Peralta became one of skateboarding’s first stars during a late-1970s craze. He wrote and directed “Dogtown and Z-Boys,” which commemorates his rise to fame. Apparently, that wasn’t sufficient.

Whether the idea originated with Peralta or not, he was complicit in this retread. The film is a second homage to the three Z-boy stars: Peralta (John Robinson), Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch) and Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk). All three are lackeys at the Zephyr Surf Shop, toiling under the tutelage of owner Skip Engbloom (Heath Ledger).

School isn’t in the picture; family is deemed equally unimportant. The boys love surfing and, when the waves aren’t breaking on the Venice beaches, skateboarding on backlots and abandoned playgrounds. They hold Skip in somewhat high regard, something the habitual drug user can’t manage even for himself.

But when Skip’s business pal introduces him to polyurethane wheels, the surf shop owner sees opportunity. The Z-Boys are created, revolutionizing skateboarding from an advanced form of roller skating to an art form. Suddenly there were ramps where there was flat surfaces, ollies where there were only daffies.

The Z-Boys real life rise and fall is appropriate for Hollywood novelization, so it makes sense that “Lords of Dogtown” has the ability to reach a larger, more mainstream, audience. Yet there still exists a great disconnect; we uncover little of why the boys show disdain toward life or why skateboarding becomes their release.

This failure to personify our disaffected protagonists is in complete contrast to “Thirteen,” director Catherine Hardwicke’s 2003 debut. In that film, audiences could point to a series of bad decisions that catalyzed Tracy’s downfall during her “self-expression.” In “Lords,” we’re given stock generalizations that provide little solace: the boys are poor, they have absentee parents, etc.

Absent of any real substance, the film becomes a glorified skateboarding video. Hardwicke is a real trooper, employing a camera operator to follow the boys up and around the swimming pools they “borrow” for ramp space. It’s some fascinating stuff, but I’m not certain it would be authentic enough for the ardent skateboarder or as engaging as the documentary. Surely audiences are sophisticated enough to prefer real skaters over their fictional counterparts. (We are, aren’t we?)

The true fascination with “Lords” is not in the skating, but in the boy’s patron saint, Skip. Ledger plays him as a non-stop drunk, who tempts impressionable youth with a carefree life. As the film progresses, he de-evolves from Pied Piper to Peter Pan, watching as his followers become more famous and increasingly independent. He’s forced to close his factory and become a grunt at a more standardized surf shop finally, a cruel conclusion for an innovator who caught his rising star but didn’t have the sense to know what to do with it.

The Australian actor also adopts a borderline unintelligible speech pattern and hides behind a wiry scruff, forgoing the charms that made him a teen-age heart throb in films like “10 Things I Hate About You” and “A Knight’s Tale.”

In fact, Ledger has never resisted challenging himself with a difficult character. “Lords” succeeds only when he does.