The Lords of Dogtown

(Herald rating: * * )

We've already been back to Dogtown - the nickname for the Santa Monica-Venice area of Los Angeles that was ground zero of the 70s skateboard revolution - in the excellent doco 2002 Dogtown And The Z-Boys.

That was directed by Stacey Peralta, one of the three key skaters from the Z-Boys team who took skating vertical and professional.

Peralta scripted this dramatisation of the same scene, while his former Z-boy team-mate Tony Alva - a huge skate star in his day - co-ordinated the stunts. But under the heavy-handed direction of Catherine Hardwicke, bringing a similar fractured style to that of her coming-of-age movie Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown feels conventional and flat. The doco elevated the Dogtown story to its rightful place of sport legend, but this deflates it.

It does fills out some of the scene's peripheral characters, but the lead trio of Peralta (Robinson), Alva (Rasuk), and Jay Adams (Hirsh) all get underwhelming portrayals, shedding little light on their personalities or motivations.

Once the skate craze they've helped to spark gathers momentum, the film follows a predictable path of friendship being pushed aside by greed with the newly pro-skaters attempting to cope with their stardom.

The film isn't helped by the eccentric performance of Heath Ledger as Skip Engblom the Z-Boys' unlikely mentor, but at least he's memorable. Nothing much else is here, even the skating. It won't induce much summer-of-77 nostalgia in those still intrigued by the influential scene, just an urge to see the doco again for the real story and its crackling energy which Lords of Dogtown sorely lacks.

CAST: Heath Ledger, Emile Hirsch, John Robinson, Johnny Knoxville, Victor Rasuk
DIRECTOR: Catherine Hardwicke
RATING: M (sexual references)
RUNNING TIME: 120mins
SCREENING: Starts Thursday Village, Hoyts cinemas