Skateboard Monarchs Ride History in Lords of Dogtown

Skateboarding is one of those things most of us will never look good doing. A peculiar mixture of athleticism & recklessness, it's cool in a way that makes mere earthbound mortals stare in wonder.

Only martial arts & breakdancing compare but there's a bone- crunching wildness to four-wheeled feats that makes it just a hair neater in the pop culture sweepstakes.

Few have embodied the sports hipness better than pioneers Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Stacy Peralta , the focus of new biopic Lords Of Dogtown , that celebrates skateboarding's early days.

Dogtown, is a nickname for Venice, CA, where this classic rock fueled reverie begins in 1975. Bounding with youthful chutzpah, the trio of "boy kings" goes from doing menial tasks for their surfing elders to their eventual super stardom in the late '70s skate craze.

Predictably, it's the early street urchin giddiness that works best, believably sharing a shining time when a urethane wheel would open up the world for a group of outsiders. The script, written by Peralta , mostly avoids being lathered up nostalgia.

Unfortunately, it also avoids delving too deeply into their motivations despite having been in the front row as it happened. In fact, there's a stronger exploration of the mad drama that unfolded in Peralta's fantastic 2001 documentary, Dogtown and Z-Boys .

The boys express their feelings primarily through their bodies and long, heavy gazes. Emile Hirsch (Adams), John Robinson (Peralta) and Victor Rasuk (Alva) are appealingly young, their inexperience as actors adding verisimilitude to their characters' nervousness as the cameras, fans and money arrive.

They make it easy to understand the bad boy kick of breaking into backyards to skate empty pools. Portraying rebels requires a certain twinkle and it's present in all the leads, and not a few of the supporting players, especially Michael Angarano as Sid, affecting & funny as the rich kid with all the heart of his pals but only half the cool.

Rebecca De Mornay is an eerily believable hippie MILF, and Heath Ledger, as the Zephyr Surf Shop owner who starts the boys first skate team, channels Val Kilmer in all his tangled, blond, stumbling glory.

Catherine Hardwicke , who's only other directing work was the dramalicious Thirteen, keeps things moving swiftly enough that when things turn predictable & overly melodramatic in the last act it's brief enough not to spoil what's come before.

Hardwicke's previous life as a production designer ( Laurel Canyon, Three Kings ) shows in the organic vibe she conjures up, successfully giving us the "feel" of the Venice they rolled around.

This is one of the most joyous embraces of outlaw culture ever filmed. What's even more fascinating is how these hippie freaks quickly recognized they were in the middle of a moment in history.

Each realistically had reasons to grab at the brass ring but there's more than a hint of wistfulness at losing something one loves for capitalism. In this way, Lords Of Dogtown manages to be both a successful entertainment and a gentle social critique.