Movie Review: Grind
Grind gives us guys on a road trip...nothing new but skateboarding guys chasing a pro skate tour with plans of going pro... okay.. a slight new dimension is added for a summer comedy adventure.
It's post high school graduation and hot skateboarder Eric Rivers (Mike Vogel) wants to go pro. His pal Dustin (Adam Brody) is working at a greasy burger joint and saving for college and slacker Matt (Vince Vieluf) lives in Eric's family garage with no goals whatsoever...except maybe beers and babes. The guys decide that getting paid to skateboard would be a cool life choice so they follow skating legend Jimmy Wilson's (Jason London) tour, just sure that once he sees their hot tricks, he'll put them on his skate team.
Jimmy's road team won't let the guys anywhere near him. The guys start their own unsponsored skate team "Super Duper', confiscate Dustin's college fund and recruit smooth ladies man Sweet Lou (Joey Kern) and give chase all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica. With the help of hot skate chick Jamie (Jennifer Morrison, whom Eric falls for), the guys finally get Jimmy to notice them.
If you are a skater or skater fan, you might enjoy this summer flick. Pro skaters Bucky Lasek, Bob Burnquist, Pierre Luc Gagnon among others, toss some fun tricks in the film and the newcomer cast of young dudes is cute. Guys will like watching hottie Jennifer Morrison whom you might know from an Urban Legends film or her guesting on Dawson's Creek. She's also the "wife" in Nick Lachey's new music video for his tune "Shut Up". Mike Vogel played Dean on "Grounded for Life" and will be seen in the edgy remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Wacky Vince Vieluf was in Rat Race and An American Werewolf in Paris.
However, if you don't care much for skating, the film gets pretty lame since the cast ad-libbed most of the dialogue and the newbie director lets them go on too long or often pursue something that could be funnier. The "release the twins" line alone was enough to turn me off. Vince is the clown prince of the piece, doing wacky pratfalls and gross-out humor that, depending on your tastes, either saves or deep-sixes the movie. The 13-year-old girls behind me in my screening got their biggest laughs out of Vince's antics. Gross out humor rules the day and cameo appearances by comic Bobcat Goldthwaite and Tom Green perk things up but only temporarily.
Skate stunts are photographed in a much more awesome manner in X-Treme X or other sports films and, for a non-skater at least, the vert stunts and rail grinding gets old after a while. And.. although it's typical of all road trip comedies, you keep wanting to tell these guys to "get a life". Their idea of a great, grown-up career is joining the pro-skate circuit at all costs.. one of the costs is Dustin's college education! When things start sliding, the filmmakers bring in the clowns.... Literally. Turns out Matt's mom and dad ran away from the corporate life to join the circus and now run a clown school.....
Grind will work for you if you are into senseless gross-out humor and watching a few fun skate tricks. Otherwise, just go rent Road Trip. .
2 out of 5 stars
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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.
