I went to Blockbuster yesterday to see if they had any decent Previously Viewed flicks for sale at decent prices. They did!
Lords of Dogtown was on sale for $9.99 so, since I had a very pleasurable experience watching the documentary (Dogtown and Z-Boys), I decided to pick it up.
Lords of Dogtown was penned by the director of the documentary, Stacy Peralta, who actually happens to be one of the main characters in the story. Stacy is one of the original Z-Boys, and is now a successful filmmaker, so it just seems like a natural fit.
The documentary was outstanding, so I came into this movie with pretty high hopes that were quickly dashed. I had no idea what was going on for the first 15 or 20 minutes, which is a shame because I pretty much knew the whole story from the documentary. Just a terrible first impression.
I was surprised to see Emile Hirsch in one of the title roles (Jay Adams). After witnessing the disaster that was The Girl Next Door, I thought this was doomed at the mention of his name in the opening credits. I was wrong. Emile showed some pretty good acting chops throughout the film, and I found that Jay Adams was probably the toughest role to pull off in the entire film.
The story seemed very loosely strung together, very choppy and hard too follow for a major (yes, a $25 million budget is still huge in my books) movie. I'm not sure if it was the very broad scope of the story that led to it's demise or Catherine Hardwicke (director) was ill-prepared to deal with such a large leading cast. Either way, it sucked.
The film was pretty entertaining, but definitely not what I was hoping for, especially after seeing the documentary.
So, if you haven't seen the documentary, watch this first, then watch the docu. The other way around, and it's not even worth watching the "fictional" version.
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