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Lords of Dogtown
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Entertainment

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 44 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Drama
Written by: Stacy Peralta
Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 3, 2005
DVD: September 27, 2005
Running Time: 107 minutes, Color
Origin: USA / Germany
Summary
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)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Dogtown and Z-Boys The Nativity Story Thirteen
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
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...
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."
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
Works best when it seems like it's not working at all.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Newsweek Devin Gordon
It's one of those juicy stories that have the added virtue of being true.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
An excellent documentary equal parts extreme sports and social anthropology.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
The film doesn't hold together in any compelling way.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Scott Foundas
Unfortunately, whenever Ledger isn't onscreen, Lords of Dogtown takes a spill.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Too much of Lords of Dogtown still feels conventional and sugar-coated.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Lords of Dogtown isn't a cop-out, but rather an ever-so-slight concession to commercialism.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Inept storytelling is one of Lords of Dogtown's great frustrations.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Premiere Kevin Allison
Lords of Dogtown may pop for the skateboarding crowd. It fizzles for the rest.
Read Full Review >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.
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.
Read Full Review >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
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!
