Grind (2003 film)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Grind" 2003 film – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (June 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Grind
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Casey La Scala
Written by	Ralph Sall
Produced by	Bill Gerber Hunt Lowry Casey La Scala
Starring	Mike Vogel Vince Vieluf Adam Brody Joey Kern Jennifer Morrison
Cinematography	Richard Crudo
Edited by	Eric Strand
Music by	Ralph Sall
Production companies	Pandora Cinema Gaylord Films Gerber Pictures 900 Films
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	August 15, 2003 (2003-08-15)
Running time	105 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6 million[1]
Box office	$5.1 million[1]

Grind is a 2003 American skateboarding comedy film directed by Casey La Scala, written and composed by record producer Ralph Sall, starring Mike Vogel, Vince Vieluf, Adam Brody and Joey Kern as four teenage aspiring amateur skateboarders on a road trip from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California in an attempt to launch get noticed by pro-skateboarding legend Jimmy Wilson careers and get skateboarding sponsorships. It was a critical and box office bomb.

Following high school graduation, skateboarders Eric Rivers and his best friends, goal-oriented workaholic Dustin Knight and misfit slacker Matt Jensen, have one last summer road trip together to follow their dream of getting noticed by the pro skater legend Jimmy Wilson on his demo tour, hoping he'll sign them up for his renowned team immediately only to be intercepted by Wilson's road manager and barred access. Following their dreams and Wilson's national tour, the trio start their own skate team, reluctantly sponsored by Dustin and his college fund.

After recruiting laid-back ladies man "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.^[2]

A soundtrack consisting of a blend of rock, hip hop and reggae music was released on August 12, 2003, by Atlantic Records.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 8% of 74 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Mediocre skateboard stunts are padded by a half-baked plot and one-dimensional characters."^[3] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 30 out of 100, based on 24 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".

Joe Laydon, of Variety called the "Skating scenes ... unremarkable and repetitious," concluding that the film was less than good.^{[citation needed]}

Keith Phipps, for The 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."^[4]

• Official website
• Grind at IMDb 
• Grind at AllMovie
• Grind at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films