Grind (zero stars)
review by Jon Waterman

I had seen the previews. I knew what to expect. Secretly, though, I hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as it looked. I gotta stop hoping.

The jokes in “Grind” are just as transparent as the motivations behind making the film. Obviously trying to cash in on the not-so-much-recent-anymore skateboarding craze, it fails to capture any of the sport’s charm or excitement. The script seems like it was hurried through the process to take advantage of this hip new fad. So, instead of making it good, they just threw in a bunch of guys from “Jackass” and assumed people would laugh. What a horrible, horrible film.

You got this one guy that’s supposed to be the clown of the group – and you later find out his parents are clowns --- Oh, Randy Quaid, why are you in this movie? --- – but basically that means acting like an idiot and making random noises. He’s played by Vince Vieluf from “Rat Race.” I liked him much more when he couldn’t talk. The other main characters are throwaways. None of them are funny. Ever. The guy that hits on all the girls and gets them in bed with little effort? Not funny. The guy that leads them all on the road trip to get a skater to sponsor him? Not funny. The other guy I can’t even remember? Definitely not funny. Please find other careers that don’t involve me having to look at you. And let me ask this. They had professional skaters in the film. I saw a couple. So, why is the main guy played by one of the London twins? Makes no sense. And why do they need that specific guy to sponsor them? In reality, any of them would work. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Super Duper dumb. By the way, Super Duper Skateboards is the name of the fake team they create in order to tour. Could they really not think of anything better? Something related to the movie, perhaps?

Perhaps the problem is that the movie is written by Ralph Sall. Ralph is a first time writer working from his extensive knowledge of skateboarding that he learned as executive music producer for a few dozen films.

I’ve already griped about the lack of prominent pro skaters. Now I’m going to complain about the lack of skate action to begin with. I seriously doubt any of the “talent” learned to do anything themselves. Any tricks are shown from the knee down. There were maybe three awe-worthy moves – performed by the seldom-seen pros. Now, supposedly, the lead guy has been working on this one trick really hard and if he were to land it, the local skate shop would sponsor him. I guess I should mention for those of you that don’t know…sponsoring is good. It means you get paid to skateboard and you can tour and make more money to skateboard. Well, if he’s been working on this trick so hard, why do we never see it? I think we see it at the end – I don’t mean to spoil the magic here – but it’s the only MTV edited thing in the movie and thus gets broken up so much you can’t really tell what happened.

What was with the dance break?

Come on guys. Take a hint from “Rad.” Now that’s how you make a hokey, fun movie about an extreme sport – that includes a better dance sequence, actually. If you really want to see the movie, grab your Nash deck and a bunch of friends and make fun of it, because that’ll be the only way to enjoy yourself.

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