Grind (2003)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Grind was a movie that randomly popped into my mind one day, for I remembered it was one of the few skateboarding movies out there. I hadn't seen it until now, and all I can say is that I'd maybe like it if I saw it at age 8 when it was released. Plot- It doesn't even try. A kid takes his dumb friends on a road trip to skate at a competition. Some funny things happen along the way but none of it feels genuine.Writing- Cringe worthy at most parts. It all felt so awkward, and it seemed as if an entirely new script would have been fine as long as they still met up with Bam Margera and company. Acting/ Characters- The writing always brings down the characters, and as stated, I thought it was very poor. Not the worst, but I mean the characters goof around in the weirdest ways, none of them are distinctive beyond a one or two word stereotype, and you end up with relative good actors playing poorly written hooligans. So in turn, the acting in itself wasn't bad, just awkward. I really got annoyed with the character Sweet Lou that is almost identical to McConaughey in Dazed in Confused. He looks like a total fool.Quality- Yikes. I watched this hoping that at least the skateboard scenes would be juicy, much like an action film with dull moments in between. The skating scenes are awful, they could have just filmed it like a real video. All you see is their feet, barely an attempt for realistic stunt doubles, and the tricks they do are laaaame- you will not be dazzled, fellow skaters. This movie looks like it was shot in a hurry, the most bland angles, lazy editing.Overall I gave this a 3 mainly because I'm considering the nostalgia aspect- people who saw this as a kid may like it, but I didn't, and I don't. I also don't give 1's much. It has no pizazz, no realism or insight into the lives of skaters, no driving plot points. Just attempts, failures, and success, all driven by an awful sense of humor and the sheer obligation to simply make a skateboarding flick for the big screen.

Annoying characters, stupid dialogue, and a bad case of miscasting. Please avoid at all costs. You're better off watching "Thrashin'," or "Gleaming The Cube," and that's not saying much...

Grind is a film that will amuse its targeted audience and people who are just looking for silly escapism. Where's the harm in that? None, if that's what you're looking for, but those seeking out charm, wit, and style in their characters and plot will have to keep their head held high and continue to walk along the long road of film.I'm not a person who skateboards. I know many who do and see no problem with it. If I attempted to do some of the things I've seen my friends do I'd probably either be in a wheelchair or be boasting to everyone. Grind makes no subtle approach that it's a film for the skaters in the world. That's not to say that if you don't shred some rails at all you'll be lost, but for a regular patron the "cool" factor on the skating scenes wears thin after a while. I'll put it this way; they are delightfully repetitive.The story is slim, but efficient. A group of metal-heads want to venture out to Santa Monica to partake in a huge skateboarding event. They create a fake company named "Super Duper," and they hit the road. The group is made up of Eric (Vogel), Sweet Lou (Kern), Dustin (Brody), and Matt (Vieluf) who delivers the most laughs.Everyone in the film reaches the point of likability, but no one dares to break the stereotype of just some ol' skater punks. Everyone just works out of their gender and personality roles. Notice how I didn't say anything special about each of the boys. Because they're so vaguely similar it's hard to distinguish them apart sometimes.Much of the MTV Jackass crew make appearances throughout the film. Preston Lacy, Ehren McGhehey, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, and Bam Margera are all seen in certain points of the film. They're like the sprinkles on top of a bland sundae. They harm absolutely nothing, but they're not a whole big part of the experience.The best scenes take place when the group doesn't feel the need to impress the camera with their skater lingo and just be themselves. While they release some of their inner-selves to us, they only give vague representations of what they should begin to unleash throughout the whole film. Not just parts few and far between. If these characters had shown more to their persona, it might've made for more of a coming-of-age story rather than just an all out party.Grind is charming with its amusement in itself and glistening in its innocence because it isn't trying to be bigger than it should. Take one look at the poster, and you know the film. I like how it isn't trying to hide anything from the viewer, but at the same time I don't like how it doesn't provide the viewer with enough character development to actually get familiar with them. Before many people jump all over me and say it isn't about that, stop and think. Would this film be more remembered and relatable to its audience if it developed some characters instead of caricatures? Starring: Mike Vogel, Adam Brody, Vince Vieluf, Joey Kern, Jennifer Morrison, Bam Margera, Jason "Wee Man" Acuna, Preston Lacy, and Ehren McGhehey. Directed by: Casey La Scala.

It was strangely difficult for me to write this much about "Grind", because everything that could possibly be said about the movie could much easier be condensed to a simple "Road Trip Ripoff". Similar characters, similar premise and similar conflicts, only this time, it's served with a surprisingly arbitrary side dish of skateboarding. I think this is actually one of my bigger complaints about this whole thing: It's not really a skateboarding movie. The skating scenes are periodically shoehorned in there, as if the director tried his hardest to get them over with as quickly and unimpressively as possible. Even the showdown, which is literally just one, long half pipe performance, is filmed in such a ham-handed, not to say *bored* manner that it could be trumped even by the skate scenes in "Most Vertical Primate". I'm hardly exaggerating. Of course my other, much bigger problem with the movie is its humor. I read in the Trivia section that large parts of the dialog were improvised, and yes, that's definitely what much of it feels like. Not the brilliant kind of spontaneity, though, but the kind one might produce when goofing around with friends after a few too many beers, where guttural noises, witless sex jokes and, of course, farts become the epitome of hilarity. I mean, I'm not trying to sound snobbish here, but I believe this rambling humor that consists of little more than random noises and guys hitting each other while shrieking in drunk amusement just doesn't translate very well to the big screen. To put it bluntly, this comedy's comedy isn't funny. It's embarrassing. All of this is quite sad, because one thing the movie definitely does have going for it is a relatively strong cast. The main group consists of adequate actors, and Vince Vieluf in particular is usually a pretty funny, unaffectedly likable guy. However, here he's reduced to a drooling moron, who makes noises all the time and giggles at the stench of his own feces. There are also special appearances by Brian Posehn, Stephen Root, Randy Quaid, Bobcat Goldthwait, various members of the Jackass ensemble, and Tom Green, just to name those I recognized right away. I've seen all of these guys deliver the goods before, but in this one, they're all shadows of themselves. Well, I guess Bam Margera did reasonably well, but maybe that's because he was one of the few characters in the movie who didn't actually try to be funny. He was just there as a celebrity skater.In closing, I'm a bit saddened that this didn't turn out any better. I very much like the basic idea of a road movie comedy about a group of amateur skateboarders trying to get sponsored. It's a crying shame that this concept went to waste with such bland, unmemorable characters and their lobotomized humor.