Grind is a 2003 American comedy film about four young aspiring amateur skaters Eric Rivers, Matt Jensen, Dustin Knight, and Sweet Lou Singer who are trying to make it in the world of pro skateboarding by pulling insane stunts in front of pro skater Jimmy Wilson.
Plot
While the rest of his high school graduating class is heading to the same old kind of college, skateboarder Eric Rivers and his best friends, Dustin, a goal-oriented workaholic, and misfit slacker Matt have one last summer roadtrip together to follow their dream of getting noticed by the professional skateboarding world—and getting paid to skate. When skating legend Jimmy Wilson's skate demo tour hits town, the boys figure that as soon as he sees their fierce tricks, he'll sign them up for his renowned skate team immediately, right? Unfortunately, the guys are intercepted by Jimmy's road manager and they can't get their foot in the door, much less their boards. But they do get some free advice: keep skating, stay true to yourself, and stay in the game—if you're good, you'll get noticed. Following their dream—and Jimmy's national tour—Eric, Dustin and Matt start their own skate team, reluctantly sponsored by Dustin and his college fund. After recruiting laid-back ladies man Lou "Sweet Lou" Singer to join their crew and provide the van for their tour, team Super Duper launches the ride of their lives in an outrageous road trip from Chicago to Santa Monica. The professional scene doesn't exactly welcome nobody, but these outsiders stick together through extreme misadventures. In their quest to go pro, they meet professional vert skating champions Bucky Lasek, Bob Burnquist and Pierre Luc Gagnon, skate pro Bam Margera and his crew Preston Lacy, Ehren Danger McGhehey and Jason Wee Man Acuña, as well as sexy skate chick Jamie as they grind handrails across America and force the skateboarding world to give 'em a piece of the action.
The film received unfavorable reviews from critics, but had received positive reviews from audiences. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 8% based on 71 reviews, with an average score of 3.1/10. Despite that, 79% of the audiences gave the film positive reviews. Metacritic gave it an average score of 30 out of 100 from the 24 reviews it collected, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Joe Laydon, of Variety Magazine called the "Skating scenes... unremarkable and repetitious," concluding that the film was less than good. Keith Phipps, for The Onion's A.V. Club, said "The film... will gleam the cube only of viewers with an unusually high tolerance for porta-toilet and Dutch-oven gags."
