DVD Review: SKATE OR DIE
Whats in a name? Well,'Skate or Die' (available on DVD from Amazon at £6.99) is a bit of a double-edged sword of a title for me. At first it inspires rabid nostalgia, for it was also the name of a peerless 1990s Nintendo Entertainment System skateboarding game, though sadly, on further research it was discovered that the film has nothing to do with the computer game. But then conversely, it is possibly the worst ever title for a skateboarding action film I have ever encountered- it is so obvious as to be vulgar. Had the film been a more avant-garde, philosophical look at skateboarding subcultures on the fringes of modern urban living, it might have struck with more resonance as a singular morality for the skaters very existence. But it actually means skate or youll die at the hands of some angry drug-dealer types. Poor. At first, and after all that titular excitement, I thought this French action film was just another attempt to make a legitimate film that incorporated urban sports and marginal identities (basically a mainstream skater and stoner flick) that would be accepted by mainstream film viewers. Par Kor, or Free Running had already made a lasting impression on the big screen, thanks to an insanely well-timed association with 'Casino Royale' (and a million other copycats), so why couldnt skateboarding have another shot at the big time? And why couldnt it be more than just a side-idea, like its contemporary urban sport competitor had been for Bond? 
Urban sports and lifestyles have a somewhat spotted association with the silver screen, with some horrendous and laughable examples, but film-makers are always ready to ride the tide of youth and urban culture. After all they are often the ones with the most expendable cash and freetime. Hence the otherwise horrendous choice to option a film like Street Dance, starring reality TV experts George Samson and Diversity- thanks to the TV success they managed to grasp, street dance is currently the urban subculture of choice. But beyond the current moment, a skateboarding film would hardly be unprecedented, with the four wheeled street sport having already enjoyed some association with the big screen. Heath Ledger was part of the best so far committed to film (outside of documentaries)- Lords of Dogtown- and where would Marty McFly be now if he hadnt been able to call on his well-honed skateboarding skills to flee an angry Biff? But really, Skate or Die is actually an attempt at marrying the cool urban youth culture of Kids (with the stricter morality code that makes a drug dealer warn her clients of the strength of her product, rather than celebrating it) with a traditional modern action film. The skating, while visually pornographied a little at the start, is obviously supposed to be merely incidental. There is a genuinely commendable attempt here to make a proper skate-board action movie with various anchored references to the big modern classic action movies of Bourne and even Taken. Look hard enough and there is even a brazen reference to Back to the Future (when the skaters or boarders or whatever the kids like to be called hitch a ride on the back of an oddly conspicuous American drop-tailgate pick-up truck, with a stetsoned driver to complete the look). Throughout the chase scenes we have a comparatively cheap attempt to recreate the pacey camera work of the Bournes and the modern Bonds, and the moodier parts of the film do feel a little like a Taken, or even a less high-octane Transporter in tone. But, because of the enduring gimmick of the skateboards, Skate or Die will always feel more like an idea of a film- how someone might shoe-horn urban sports into an action film without completely compromising the adultness of the action sequences, without really pulling it off. Still, some of the photography sequences are visually quite impressive- hence the commendation- even if the editing process seems to have been content on destroying all of the good work. There are a few enduring problems- perhaps because of the magpie-ing of ideas from other action films, and a plot that feels more like a paradigm than anything original, Skate or Die feels very, very familiar. The first twist comes at you like a very slow, lumbering freight train that you can see coming over the hill from about the fourth second a certain group of characters are introduced. Basically, the writing is lazy, and doesnt exactly endear itself to viewers, with a lot of knowingness and an odd artistic arrogance that doesnt fit the quality of the finished film. Acting-wise youre looking at a mid-level British gangster film, with the false and occasionally painful adolescence of some skater-kids. No-one sticks out as being worthy of individual praise (not even the teen-skater pair of Mickey Mahut and Idriss Diop, who surely should have considered Skate or Die the vehicle to show their acting skills off), though the pairs chief tormentors manage reasonable impressions of grumpy, amoral drug-dealer types without actually threatening to break into any acting at all. Even the genuine star on show- Elsa Pataky- is pretty uninspiring, though that is perhaps understandable since her chief billing so far has been as Maria in Snakes on a Plane. In short, youre not missing a great deal. There arent the necessary skills and tricks on show that would appeal to genuine skateboarders (its basically all just going really fast without the Kick-flips, 720s and Ollies that make it all look pretty), and everyone else will be let down by the writing and the overall familiarity of anything that aims at being close to good. P.S. There is something odd that I always observe about modern realistic French films. They always feel like they were made at the tail-end of the 90s or the early 00s, and 'Skate or Die' is no different. The filming style looks a few steps behind modern film making techniques (even those which seek to ape the hand-held kinetic camera work of the action films I name-checked earlier. Perhaps it is a symptom of the countrys attitude to externally visible progress: my travelling experiences of the country spawned the idea that the country preserves its culture through hiding the more excessive of technological and design advances (or at least pushing them out to the fringes and the circuses of Cannes and urban Paris). Whatever the reason, the visuals of Skate or Die feel oddly aged, without any other suggestion that the film is set in any time other than now- a fact exacerbated by the choice of pop music that dot around the soundtrack.