I had a good time with this! It's a mixture of some of my favorite genres: coming of age, detective stories, and skateboarding.
This was like if the movie Brick was set in the 80s and JGL was just ripping on a skateboard in construction zones like Kevin Bacon dancing in Footloose instead of talking like a hard-boiled cop from the 40s.
Every time the Pizza Hut truck showed up, I had a giant grin on my face.
It yada yada's a lot of stuff and gets to the good stuff without much hassle. I enjoyed the relationship between Brian and Lucero.
I do wish we had gotten to see more of Vinh before he died. We don't get much of his personality or how much he clearly means to the rest of the family or to Brian's friends. It would've made all of the skaters showing up all the more impactful if they all had some relationship with him prior to his being murdered. That being said, the final act of this film rips, and it's mostly because of the Friedkin-esque chase sequence, but also because of how badly everyone wants to take down the people responsible for fucking with Brian's family.
Love to see names like Stacey Peralta and Lance Mountain and Rodney Mullen and Mike Vallely in the credits. All the skating stuff was actually pretty cleverly used, like for the scene when Brian starts the explosion.
There's plenty you could criticize this movie for - for being cheesy, for the half-baked romance plot, for some far-fetched ideas - but it rides the line between knowing it's fun and taking itself seriously just well enough that you never really care about the flaws.
I love me some Christian Slater, but the whole time watching this, I couldn't help but think this role needed to be played by River Phoenix. I think he would have sold the emotionality a bit better.
That's about all my thoughts on this. When the "what do I watch tonight" anxiety kicks in, sometimes you just gotta pop something from your watchlist on and hope for the best. Luckily, I wasn't disappointed.
6.5/10
I had a good time with this! It's a mixture of some of my favorite genres: coming of age, detective stories, and skateboarding.
This was like if the movie Brick was set in the 80s and JGL was just ripping on a skateboard in construction zones like Kevin Bacon dancing in Footloose instead of talking like a hard-boiled cop from the 40s.
Every time the Pizza Hut truck showed up, I had a giant grin on my face.
It yada yada's a lot of stuff and gets to the good stuff without much hassle. I enjoyed the relationship between Brian and Lucero.
I do wish we had gotten to see more of Vinh before he died. We don't get much of his personality or how much he clearly means to the rest of the family or to Brian's friends. It would've made all of the skaters showing up all the more impactful if they all had some relationship with him prior to his being murdered. That being said, the final act of this film rips, and it's mostly because of the Friedkin-esque chase sequence, but also because of how badly everyone wants to take down the people responsible for fucking with Brian's family.
Love to see names like Stacey Peralta and Lance Mountain and Rodney Mullen and Mike Vallely in the credits. All the skating stuff was actually pretty cleverly used, like for the scene when Brian starts the explosion.
There's plenty you could criticize this movie for - for being cheesy, for the half-baked romance plot, for some far-fetched ideas - but it rides the line between knowing it's fun and taking itself seriously just well enough that you never really care about the flaws.
I love me some Christian Slater, but the whole time watching this, I couldn't help but think this role needed to be played by River Phoenix. I think he would have sold the emotionality a bit better.
That's about all my thoughts on this. When the "what do I watch tonight" anxiety kicks in, sometimes you just gotta pop something from your watchlist on and hope for the best. Luckily, I wasn't disappointed.
6.5/10
