Skateboard

This would seem to promise a rip-off Bad News Bears on wheels, and visions of yet another exploitative US sub-culture package hardly whet the appetite. Yet anticipations of doom are happily dashed: the familiar ingredients of cynical but loveable coach (Garfield), bronzed, blond-curled Southern Californian kids, the absurdist razzmatazz of American competitive sport, and a rock soundtrack, here actually mesh into a rather endearing entertainment. The film neatly explores the psychology (and the economics) of hype and 'pressure', and its many skateboard action sequences are well shot and edited. A good, lightweight, upbeat family film.