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Lords of Dogtown
Sony Pictures Entertainment

Lords of Dogtown reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 56 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
8.8 out of 10
based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 44 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for drug and alcohol content, sexuality, violence, language and reckless behavior - all involving teens

Starring Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, John Robinson, Michael Angarano, Nikki Reed, Heath Ledger, Johnny Knoxville, and Alexis Arquette

From the dangerous waves off a long-forgotten pier to the concrete wasteland of a city slum, Lords of Dogtown brings to cinematic life the rebel beginnings of some unforgettable sports culture stars. (Sony)


GENRE(S): Action  |  Drama  
WRITTEN BY: Stacy Peralta  
DIRECTED BY: Catherine Hardwicke  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: September 27, 2005 
Theatrical: June 3, 2005 
RUNNING TIME: 107 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: USA / Germany 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Lords of Dogtown is a docudrama, rare in its grit and authenticity, that also strives for the mythical youth-rebel excitement of something like "8 Mile."
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80
The New York Times Dana Stevens
From start to finish, is pretty much a blast.
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80
Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
As beautifully structured as one of the Z-Boys' graceful and intricate maneuvers. It is economic yet possesses depth and is visually striking, capturing an idea of what life is like in a very fast lane.
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78
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Works best when it seems like it's not working at all.
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75
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Hardwicke whips up a frenzy of crazy-cool board action, with Alva choreographing the stunts. Even when the slippery-slope-of-success cliches halt the film's momentum, the ready-to-rock actors rev it up again.
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75
USA Today Mike Clark
The skating scenes are their own reward: It's hard to think of a movie since 1950's "Sunset Boulevard" that has gotten more dramatic impact out of a pool.
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75
Boston Globe Wesley Morris
The movie is like a daydream, and it's most infectious when the characters are in motion or misbehaving, which is often.
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75
San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
Peralta uses the creative liberties of fiction to focus on the one thing he couldn't convey in his historical record -- the sense of tribalism among skateboarders, who live by a code that most law-abiding citizens misunderstand for hooliganism.
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75
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Though the fiction doesn't quite equal the documentary in razzle-dazzle impact, it's a credible, handsome and engaging entertainment.
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70
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
There are times when even a director's worst impulses aren't enough to sink a movie, and somehow Lords of Dogtown stays afloat, largely because many of its actors transcend Hardwicke's heavy-handed storytelling.
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70
Newsweek Devin Gordon
It's one of those juicy stories that have the added virtue of being true.
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67
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
An excellent documentary equal parts extreme sports and social anthropology.
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63
Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The film doesn't hold together in any compelling way.
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63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen
So the questions arises: Why bother watching the contrived fiction when the eye-popping fact is readily available? Answer: Why, indeed.
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63
New York Post Kyle Smith
The story meanders from competition to competition (up the ramps, down the ramps) and seems like it could end at any point. The characters are similarly underdeveloped.
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63
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Nearly everything fresh and exciting about the 2002 documentary "Dogtown and Z-Boys" - the story of the Santa Monica-Ocean Park-Venice area misfits who revolutionized skateboarding in the 1970s - becomes studied and secondhand in The Lords of Dogtown.
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60
Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky
After trying to prove himself a serious actor in deadly dull movies, Ledger lightens up and brightens up a movie that attempts the trick of bringing a new spin to an old story but can't pull off the stunt.
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60
The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Takes a surprisingly gritty approach that gives the material some gravitas but also robs it of some of its fun.
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60
Village Voice Ed Halter
Hardwicke's pop-Cassavetes melodrama nevertheless rides as smoothly as a big-budget after-school special, capturing youth struggles from an appropriately blown-out teen's-eye perspective.
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60
The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
It's no surprise that when it ultimately tries to pluck at the heartstrings, it rings hollow. The film lives and dies by speed.
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60
Empire Alan Morrison
A hanging-out movie that’s as close as you’ll ever get to soaking up the time, the place and the attitude. Too slack for mainstream audiences, though.
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50
Variety Robert Koehler
It's a wipeout once the pic skids into melodrama and an overly schematic sense of how success tore the group apart.
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50
LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Unfortunately, whenever Ledger isn't onscreen, Lords of Dogtown takes a spill.
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50
Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Too much of Lords of Dogtown still feels conventional and sugar-coated.
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50
Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Lords of Dogtown isn't a cop-out, but rather an ever-so-slight concession to commercialism.
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50
ReelViews James Berardinelli
Inept storytelling is one of Lords of Dogtown's great frustrations.
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50
Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt
The look and feel here is classic Hardwicke: gritty and dark, so as to fool you into thinking this film is serious business.
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50
Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
The new film, superficial and chaotic, delivers a rough sense of place, a reasonable number of skateboard thrills and very little character development or story.
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50
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Although Catherine Hardwicke, the director of Lords of Dogtown, has a good sense for the period and does what she can with her actors, we've seen the originals, and these aren't the originals.
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50
TV Guide Ken Fox
The skating photography is excellent and, like the documentary's soundtrack, songs from the Stooges, Blue Oyster Cult and the Weirdos set the proper mood. But this dramatization does nothing Peralta's documentary didn't do better.
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50
Premiere Kevin Allison
Lords of Dogtown may pop for the skateboarding crowd. It fizzles for the rest.
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40
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
If Lords of Dogtown accomplishes nothing else, it shows how hard writing a fiction film can be, and what a vast artistic distance can stand between a bad fiction film and the first-rate documentary that inspired it.
38
New York Daily News Jack Mathews
A tormented dramatization of the exact same events, and it's as bad as the earlier film ("Dogtown and Z-Boys") was good.
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30
Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Excruciatingly narcissistic.
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20
Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Has all the energy and spontaneity of a bowl of waxed fruit. If watching "Dogtown and Z-Boys" was tantamount to witnessing history itself, watching "Lords of Dogtown," which Peralta wrote, feels more like watching a stiff, meticulously choreographed reenactment.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 44 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Sarah P. gave it a10:
it was amazing! i totally loved it!

Amanda N. gave it a10:
This movie is great one of the best movies i have ever seen it is one of my favs. i'm sure going to own it soon, If u haven't seen it, Its a must see!

stanley h. gave it a5:
Ok,could of been better.

Yoss A. gave it a3:
Pretty boring. I didn't find the characters or the story interesting at all. Even all the skateboarding didn't exactly thrill me.

craig s. gave it a2:
The worst movie I've seen in years - terrible acting by e veryone - especially Ledger - what a joke he is - such hollow cartoony characters - surely the real people were'nt such losers. love the doco and the era -this sucks !

Rachel S. gave it a10:
I absolutly loved it. The documentary was awesome too. And Victor Rasuck, Emile Hrisch and John Robbinson all did a great job and cant help but sya they are very attractive!

Taylor gave it a10:
I thought it was the bbest movie I have ever seen!

Read more user comments...

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