 | Lords Of Dogtown Director: Catherine Hardwicke Rated: M Now Showing  'Lords Of Dogtown' is, along with so many films both within and without the mainstream these days, adorned with a visual flair that is almost entirely undermined by a deficit of substance. It is a fictional account of the rise to prominence of street skating in west coast America in the 1970s. The 2001 documentary 'Dogtown And Z-Boys' covered the same history, though in far superior fashion. Incidentally, the director and co-writer of the documentary, Stacey Peralta, who happened to have been a central figure in the skating scene concerned, was also responsible for the screenplay of this regrettable pop-manifestation. It is interesting to see Peralta according his past self, played with innocence by John Robinson ('Elephant'), significant sympathy in his script, in contrast with the presentation of several of his associates. Three youths, including Tony Alva (Victor Rasuk), Jay Adams (Emile Hirsch), and Stacey Peralta, are the focus of the story. They all emanate skill and talent, as well as an unusually large share of juvenile naivety and destructiveness. Their initial patron, Skip, played with a constant slurry sardonicism by Heath Ledger, drives them to a quasi-artistic form of success as part of team 'Zephyr'. But, as ever, the profit-hungry forces of capitalism are lurking, deviously removing the stars from their indie roots and shifting them, along with almost the entire underground skating scene, into the commercial mainstream. This process reflects the fate of every trend that has gained even a smidgen of popularity in the post-industrial democratic world anyway, from punk music to home renovation. A critique of it would not have been unwelcome even if a little obvious, but Catherine Hardwicke's film fails to go even this far. The hundred-or-so minutes of cinematic incoherency on display here is constituted mainly by action shots of varying technical complexity, and fragmented exchanges of trite and nonsensical dialogue. Hardwicke and cinematographer Eliot Davis' disjointed camera work detracts further from the film's already dwindling integrity. It is appropriately fast in pace, but far too consistently jittery. Highly mobile photography is not essentially negative, but in order to attribute any object adequate visual emphasis the camera must at times be able to focus or remain still. But in 'Lords Of Dogtown' everything is glossed over, especially anything that could possibly give the film perceivable volume. Even those not interested in depth will probably find the epileptic visual presentation nauseating.  | |
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