Customer Reviews

Grind (Mini DVD)

5 star:		(43)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Ok, so Grind is not the movie you want to watch if you're looking for a great award winning flick. The acting's ok, but not the best. The humor is awesome, but not if you're looking for particularly intelligent comedy. All in all, it's a funny movie, if you're simple (such as myself) and get easily amused by nifty skate tricks, this is for you. The guys aren't genius material, nor is it a movie to live by, but if your alternative is not particularly exciting, I'd definately say check out Grind. It's a keeper.

I have to admit that the only reason I rented this movie in the first place was because of Adam Brody but by the end of the movie I was like WOW!!!!!!!I loved it!It has great jokes and has a load of great actors in it!Mike Vogel[The Texas Chainsaw Massacre],Adam Brody[The O.C.],Joey Kern[Cabin Fever],and Vince Vieluf[Ratrace].And for all the people who dislike this movie I'm sorry that you are legally "BLIND"!!!This is a great film for skaters and a great movie for people who don't skate,like me.MY friend and I are 12 and play soccer and we love this movie!!!So for anyone who wants to watch a good movie then rent Grind!!!And after you watch it it will make you want to start skateboarding!!!!!!

Im young, and I watch this movie every summer with my friends. Just a good time movie.

the movie was in very good condition (like new) the price was good, and the movie itself turns out to be pretty entertaining. Lots of good skate moves, and pretty funny. I would recommend it to anyone with a reasonable sense of humor, especially if they are into skating.

I was mainly interested in watching this for Tom Green's cameo, which turned out to be not very funny, but the rest of the movie made up for it. It achieves a good balance between gags and heart, keeping you laughing at the stupid situations the guys get themselves into, but caring enough about them to want to see them succeed. A quality generic teen road buddy movie. As good as any of the American Pie movies or anything else in the genre.

This is a movie about high school graduates learning to follow their dreams after graduation. It is set in a skateboard theme, and many reviews seem to think it should be a skateboard life movie, which it is not. If you want a feel good movie with some funny moments watch this one.

Five or some years ago, I declared that this movie would suck and as far as I was concerned, it did. I hadn't watched a sport related film since "Airborn" (with my second eldest brother), the Disney Channel Original Movie, "Brink!", and "The Lords of Dogtown" last year. None of them were my favorite movies, but my siblings favorites, though I enjoyed them all the same during the times I watched them. So when I "dared to be stupid" and decided to watch "Grind", I expected to be doing a lot of face palming and just enjoying the scenery that was the then-newcomer, Mike Vogel. But to my surprise this film manages to excel above the corniness or heavy melodrama that occupies the aforementioned films.

Eric Rivers (Mike Vogel), who has recently graduated high school, aspires to become a professional skateboarder -- up there with the likes of Jimmy Wilson, his idol. But with no one willing to sponsor him or his friends, this dream is as close to coming true as his prospects of escaping work with his father in a Hardware store. However, he hardly allows this to deter him and one day he proposes the idea of following Jimmy Wilson's tour across the country to his friends Dustin Knight (Adam Brody) and Matt Jensen (Vince Vieluf). At first, they are apprehensive as they're perfectly comfortable in their current niches and Dustin is determined to work his overtime to pay his way to collage. However, with a little more convincing Eric manages to recruit them and the eldest of his friends, Sweet Lou Singer (Joey Kern) who decides to join them after a learning one of his "high-school sweethearts" tells her father about him. Once on the road, the "Super Duper Skates" run into more problems and failures than successes and begin wonder if their road trip was such a good idea after all.

Grind is an adventure/comedy in its simplest form; the idea of watching four teenage boys (or three, excluding Sweet Lou) ride around in a rusty old van chasing a skateboarder's tour bus, hardly sounds like a interesting way to spend your hour, at first. But watching the concept in motion was actually pretty fun. The actors do really great jobs of bringing the personalities of their assigned characters to life. They don't fall into a random stereotype that one could peg very easily. Granted, there's a clown in the form of Vieluf's Matt, a dreamer in Vogel's Eric, the academic in Brody's Dustin, and the stoner-esque slacker in Kern's Lou, but they all manage to become more than their suspected labels.

I think my favorite character besides Eric Rivers, was Sweet Lou Singer. The writer must've watched "Dazed and Confused", because Sweet Lou emulates a lot of what I saw in Matthew McConaughey in the aforementioned film. The only thing that was missing was the drug element. One negative in relation to characters that seemed forgetful and rather needless in the grand scheme of things (until that one moment), was Jennifer Morrison as Jamie. Morrison makes small appearances throughout the film, and somehow serves a love-interest for Eric Rivers, yet her character hardly has any interaction with the characters until the end of the movie. Her sudden romantic relationship with Mike Vogel's character was simply unbelievable. Literally.

A lot of the time the humor in the film is crude and flat out gross, just like something a gaggle of boys would find amusing, but it never falls flat and actually made me laugh out loud. The only negatives of this film that I can think of, is that the "story" is easily forgotten as you get swept up in watching the skate boarding sequences, or just watching the four young men get their asses handed to them time and again whilst out in the wide blue countryside. I got so caught up in their road-trip I tended to forget where they were headed.

Also, my knowledge on the skateboarding sport beyond just riding a board and not falling down is very limited. To add onto that, I didn't know any of the names of mentioned in this film, so beyond the actor cameos, the famous skaters were something I never noticed. Everyone that wasn't one of the main characters were just extras in the background to me. The soundtrack is compiled of music that was pretty popular back in 2003 or 2000, featuring the likes of Shinedown, Trapt, and Billy Talent among others. However, there is one moment of "score" during a scene shared between Matt and his enstranged family, which made me roll my eyes in embarssment. Thankfully it stops as abruptly as it began.

The overall acting in this movie was excellent; I really don't expect anything above average or mediocre in terms of acting when it comes to movies like this. But the acting was really good, to repeat myself. The then-newcomer Mike Vogel performed nicely in his role and was flat out adorable to boot. Adam Brody (an actor I tend to get confused with Tom Hanks' son, Colin Hanks. Don't ask) as the sensible Dustin Knight creates a likeable nerd character that isn't an overbearing on the moral compass when concerned with acedemics and his future. Vince Vieluf pretty much plays the same wackey character he played in Rat Race without the strange speech pattern and dumb-giant personality. Joey Kern's performance as Sweet Lou was probably the most interesting; He played it with such ease, it was hard not to buy this character. Overall, Grind is a really entertaining movie. Its nothing innovative, but you just have a good time watching it. --- [a 4 out of 5]

Grind's plot line is outlined in the Amazon capsule: teenage guys on the verge of college hit the road in hopes of getting a skateboarding sponsorship deal. Along the way, they become better friends and do some skating.

If I didn't know anything about skateboarding, I might find the whole skateboard culture thing a little obnoxious, but the guys are likeable enough, even if their characters are a little flat and predictable (the dying-to-get-signed skater, the clown - who is awesome, the reluctant tagalong and the womanizer) and the challenges of the road plus their solutions are amusing enough.

In terms of the skateboarding, there are some nice sequences and the cinematography of those beats most skater pron. I dug the skating and wished there was more. There just wasn't enough. My favorite sequence was the hotel pool - that was awesome. But the ramp riding at the end was incredible and the way it was filmed was first rate.

Do I recommend it? Depends. If you're looking for a new take on the teen genre, this isn't it. If you're looking for the ultimate skater movie, this isn't it either (it doesn't yet exist). If you're looking for a couple of sequences of rad skating interspersed with a thing storyline, then GRIND might be the ticket.

Mike Vogel, Vince Vieluf, Adam Brody and Joey Kern were great together. I have watched this movie over and over. Vince made me laugh a lot! I'm looking for grind two-maybe it will show up sometime and maybe not. I gain a new appreciation for skateboarding! I don't understand the lack of insight from the other reviewers. Maybe they could try it and see if they could do a better job?

Grind is the coolest movie ever!!! It's about 3 guys who follow this pro skater so they can get a shot at going pro. It is hilarious. Bam Margera makes a few apperences in this movie. If you are a skater this movie is for you!