I would pay $0.25 to watch this movie

      Now this one is truly bad. I would like to say that it’s a skateboarding movie, but that would be too kind. In fact, it’s a skateboarder movie. Not in the sense that a skateboarder would like this movie because of all the gnarly skateboarding onscreen, but in the sense that it’s a movie about four skateboarder chums trying to make it big.

    If the concept isn’t boring enough, the execution will do it for you. I mean, I’m a guy who lists as one of his all time favorites a movie about two guys who dive… over and over again. But again, it’s the execution that does it. “Grind” is dull gag after predictable ‘plot twist’ with a bunch of minor cameos thrown in for shock value.

    There were some funny jokes in the movie, hence a positive rating for this movie. However, those jokes were tiny little moments of queasy humor as I looked forward to the next several scenes of utter boredom. The acting was tolerable, but the characters were just plain lame. Even Robert DeNiro or Emily Watson would have had trouble making the characters in “Grind” interesting.

    Now for the breakdown. The acting was OK, the direction was horrible, the costume design was moronic, the stunts weren’t very impressive, and the plot and dialogue were abominations. Oh yeah, the soundtrack was pathetic.

    I mentioned the costume design in the breakdown. The reason I do so is because of the antagonists of the movie: Several white guys who try to bring our heroes down while acting as funky fresh as possible. Of course, this joke is only about ten years old, but the costume design was just too over-the-top to make these supposed villains even remotely threatening. They were supposed to be stereotypical wannabe gangsters, but they came across as totally insincere. I felt this was primarily to do with their outfits.

    Not to mention “Sweet Lou”, one of the hero characters. He was supposed to be the suave skater who managed to get all the ladies. So why was he dressed like a lounge lizard from Las Vegas? I mean, how many skate bettys want to date Tom Jones? It was simply unbelievable. This wouldn’t be a problem if the movie had portrayed itself as a fantasy, but it rather presented itself as a pathetically distorted view of America as a collection of wacky stereotypes.

    The basic plot of the movie was a road trip movie. Chasing their dream becomes a starkly obvious metaphor as our heroes trek across the US trying to make it into the Valhalla of professional skateboarders. Our heroes are engaged in a series of wacky adventures with equally odd characters thrown in, even with the token surreal moment stuck in the western desert. Any number of good movies follow this formula, “Six String Samurai” being the one that springs to mind. However, most of these movies have an interesting theme, which “Grind” was utterly devoid of.

    To make a long story short: Don’t watch this movie. It has no saving grace. If you want to see all the boys from “Jackass” in a movie, watch “Jackass: The Movie”, they barely poke their heads above the sand in this one. The best thing about this movie is that you don’t have to see it.