Grind

from Film Forum, 08/21/03

In Grind, a group of high school graduates choose competitive skateboarding over college and hit the road for a summer tour. The young role models show off their moves and harass girls on their way to stardom.

Religious press critics also show off a few moves as they line up to pan the feature.

Loren Eaton (Focus on the Family) concludes, "Grind is in a bind. The film is more interested in randy sexuality than halfpipes. In fact, so much time ends up being devoted to plunging bodices, shimmying rears, and taut tummies (and rampant sexual innuendo and scatological quips while we're at it) that one begins to feel as if he's stumbled into an edited version of the Tom Green vehicle Road Trip."

"Ohhhh … Puleeze," groans Michael Elliott (Movie Parables). "The loudest grind I heard was coming from the vicinity of my teeth as I sat and reflected on all the other films that I might have been seeing."

Tom Snyder (Movieguide) criticizes "an excessive amount of implied sexual promiscuity, bathroom humor, and PG-13 foul language. Also, the perks of being a professional skateboarder involve getting all the girls, booze, and money that a growing young man wants. Instead of making something like this, the filmmakers could have made a redemptive version of something like The Karate Kid."