Lords of Dogtown

This Catherine Hardwicke film is essentially a dramatic retelling of Stacy Peralta's 2001 documentary, Dogtown And Z-Boys.

That recorded the story of Peralta's teenage years, when he and his friends - all but one of them boys - escaped from their lowly upbringing near Venice Beach, California, in the Seventies by surfing the concrete; at first for their own pleasure, and then for money as they pioneered the 'culture' of skateboarding.

Peralta's original didn't examine skateboarding's limitations as self-expression or sport: it was a nostalgic celebration, pure and simple.

Since Ms Hardwicke was not as intimately involved, I was hoping for more of an in-depth analysis by a clear-sighted sceptic.

I didn't get it - though she and her design team do create an impressively realistic evocation of Venice Beach in the Seventies.

This is not a film about grown-ups, which leaves the best of the actors on display - Heath Ledger as the Z-Boys' usually drunk or stoned mentor, Johnny Knoxville as a dodgy promoter, and Rebecca De Mornay as one of the boy's mothers - on the sidelines.

Though none of the teenage actors is terrible, they're not as charismatic as the people they're supposed to be playing.

None of the actors or stunt-doubles in the fictional film pulls off stunts that are as spectacular as ones that we could see for real in the documentary.

If the subject really interests you, watch the documentary.

Lords Of Dogtown
Cert: cert12A