Deck Dogz

As with other recent 'youth' movies created by ill informed 40 year old men in Australia: WOLF CREEK, THUNDERSTRUCK, GARAGE DAYS and the truly disgraceful SAMPLE PEOPLE, this film cutely titled DECK DOGZ also suffers from the same major flaw: there isn't ten teenagers anywhere who would pay the $10 it costs for that age group to see it in a cinema. And why would they. If you saw the trailer you would groan. Compiled with antisocial fool characters who have stupid names and contrived clothes like some shopping list of wacky ideas thought up by drunk middle aged skate shop owners late one Friday night at a Chinese restaurant, DECK DOGZ is apparently supposed to appeal to 10-16 year old boys who go to multiplex cinemas. Well they do but not to this: they go to multi million dollar American CGI extravaganzas that cost the same ticket price. DECK DOGZ looks exactly like what it is: the older generation's idea of what teens do....which is enough to make any 10-16 year old boy avoid at all costs.. It looks contrived and it is - and kids see right through it. As a result it dies in ten seconds at the box office and someone is apparently shocked. As with gun / chase films, these pix are made better by the Yanks and are an embarrassment when fashioned into some local ripoff. Like those films mentioned above, DECK DOGZ smacks of misinformed opportunism and is unable to compete in the very market for which it was intended. Is is better than any similar imported film? No. And that simply is why kids avoid it. And that is why it should have not been made in the first place. The makers of this film should have known that if they had bothered to do any market research. They obviously didn't and this is the result: box office failure, a waste of resources and irritation. A lesson still not yet learned by the used car salesmen who try make exploitative teen films in Australia. Sam Katzmen, they ain't. Cormans either. Groan.

Dang, the artistic value of this movie is through the roof, if nothing else, and the original music is O.G. style as well as the non-original music. I bought this movie off the shelf only because there was a skateboarder on it, not realizing it is an Australian film, and having never even heard of it. It is now one of my favorites. I was shocked at the consistency of it--I don't see that often. 'Seems skateboarding is part of the Australian culture, which is freakin' awesome--makes me want to go there. I bought a board the other day, and there's something about it that made me fall in love with it. Some people have been saying in the reviews on this site that the way the dudes act in the movie is unrealistic, and some of the slang used in the movie would never be used in real life. I just thought it was an Australian thing, and it humored me. It's cool. I did watch the making of the movie though, and Sean Kennedy and the other two did that blow on their hands that they do in the movie and he said something about how it was the "gayest" thing they'd done on the set. Then I thought, maybe they're just like us! I know I use gay in the same fashion... Anyways, it doesn't matter if one would act that way in real life or not, it's like, an art form. Nice.

This film was a great Australian film which got less credit then it deserved!

The acting may not be top notch, but it wasn't too unbelievable and flowed real good.Some people may see this is nothing like teen ages, but actually it is pretty close, so they captured that all well. The Storyline was good and also ended and started good, made sense and wasn't boring. A lot of skating action, but also had a great story to go with it. The characters were well captured, and they showed their individuality well even if they may have outrageous names, eg. Blue Flame, Poker, stickers and spaz. Tony hawk completed this package too with great acting and film presence.

I recommend this movie to teen ages and people that enjoy young men drama.

I suggest you try this movie, I myself have watched it a outrageous 23 times, no kidding, I loved it each time!

This movie was entertaining for what it was worth, and I thought it picked up towards the end. It was contrived in many ways, but if you are trying to be a professional athelete in Australia you probably would look up to the Americans if they invented the sport. So I think that including Tony Hawk in this was not as stupid as some people think.

To people who say that this film was unrealistic, you probably haven't experienced the dingy areas of Melbourne and Sydney. The thing people are saying about it making skaters look bad is questionable because it wasn't like they were condoning their actions when they burnt the science lab down.

The plot was a bit shallow, but I thought the inclusion of the cartoons that Spasm drew on yellow post-its added to the atmosphere and gave an insight into Spasm's psychology.

I thought the way they portrayed the police was a bit far fetched but not incomprehensible. There was a familiar ring to most of the movie and I could relate a lot of it to areas and people I have seen and met. However, the acting was overdone and it kind of reminded me of something you might see on Neighbours only with better production values. I think one of the saving graces of this was the few skate tricks they actually had in it, particularly Spasm's new combo that he landed when no one was around at night. There was a notable lack of skills from the other skaters in the trio.

Maybe this movie could have been done better if they let the actors improvise more or used real skaters to advise on the dialogue. The character "Stickers" was the kind of person that really does exist in Australia, but I don't know if he should have been included here. He was amusing in a pathetic way but it seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back.

Dudes.. I'm not a skater or anything, but i definitely dig them..

this movie does make skaters look bad, cause of the behavior of the three try-hards in this movie.. this is definitely a funny movie, but i don't recommend you see it, unless you wanna see some try-hard-skaters going around skating..

its actually really funny, cause I've started a crew now called the 'TTH (Total Try Hard) Deck Dogz', with a good friend of mine cause we were so baffled by this movie..

This is so funny, cause you see the try-hard-skater Asian guy, Blue Flame, getting chicks at random party's, and a guy like him would not ever have this happen ha ha..

oh and to people reading this, we need other people who can skate, or wanna learn to skate (in Sydney, northern beaches) to join our crew.. our job is to get drunk, and skate around!!... so please anyone interested, e-mail me on dammit_blink182@hotmail.com, or I'm me on Nikzaaussie... so yeah PLEASE!!!!!!