Grind (2003) Critic Reviews

What Grind lacks in cinematic skill, it makes up for in heart, which is what most dudes-in-arms flicks are missing. Given the option of spending eternity with these gentlemen or the boys of ''American Pie,'' I'd choose the lads of Grind. Read the full review

Sweet, in its meandering way. It has no meanness in it, no cynicism, no desire to be anything other than what it is, an evocation of the fun of living your life as a skateboarder.Read the full review

Supplies stretches of actual skating footage by pros doubling for the stars. It's in these moments, freed from the earthbound pull of its market-tested components, that the movie briefly relaxes into the sheer thrilling audacity of flying into the air propelled by a board on wheels.Read the full review

Manages to capture enough honest moments to make it watchable, but it's never really funny enough to recommend to anyone who's outgrown short pants and kneepads.Read the full review

The most humorous actor in the film, Joey Kern as Sweet Lou the cradle-robbing ladies' man, gets laughs only because he's performing a note-for-note rip-off of the Matthew McConaughey character in "Dazed and Confused."Read the full review

What the problem comes down to is a group of filmmakers making misguided choices in an effort to broaden the movie's demographics beyond those who attend X Games. Read the full review

Buried somewhere under the gross-out jokes and the wet-lipped ogling at an endless parade of jiggling bikini-clad flesh in Grind is the kernel of a cheerful little movie about the world of competitive skateboarding. Read the full review

First-time director Casey La Scala and some talented stunt doubles squeeze in a fair amount of impressive skating footage, but the film around it will gleam the cube only of viewers with an unusually high tolerance for porta-toilet and Dutch-oven gags. Read the full review

Sitting through the teen skateboard comedy Grind is, well, a grind. Read the full review