All This Mayhem: Skating by
Eddie Martin’s portrait of Aussie skate champs Ben and Tas Pappas, All This Mayhem, is edited well enough that it takes a while to realize how little it’s telling you.
It’s not an unenjoyable 104 minutes, mind you. The talking-head segments, particularly with Tas himself, have a ’90s-throwback flavor I enjoyed. But the skating itself isn’t presented in a way that effectively propels the narrative; I don’t want to make it out like I could roll down a gentle incline while seated on a skateboard and not end up a scribble of bone shards, but the way it’s filmed here, it tends to read to a civilian as an indistinguishable and therefore unimpressive series of drops and grabs that don’t look that hard, and, like, of course they’re hard. It’s not that hard to make them look…hard, is it?
I just typed “hard” a lot. Anyway, another issue with that is the storyline in which Tony Hawk is a corporate Disney skater everyone decides should be the face of the sport, versus the gonzo Pappases who have the real talent and balls — but that’s undercut by the footage seeming to show them all doing identical tricks.
Without a properly visually shaped skating story, then, you have the rocket-into-a-mountainside downward spiral of both brothers, the drug abuse and alienation of each feeding off the other’s and ending (almost) in a spectacularly tabloidy series of events for Ben. At that point, though, the film pulls back a bit; it doesn’t interview police, or more than a couple friends who only saw Ben at the pipe. It’s like it decides it’s mostly about Tas, or about skating, and it doesn’t want to rubberneck? That’s completely fine. Unfortunately, All This Mayhem doesn’t quite know what it’s about, or maybe quite have the courage to admit that it’s in fact about what the title says it’s about: the train wreck. Tas, who’s almost got enough colloquial rhythm and charisma, would be the first to tell you that’s what it is; he’d be the first to explain the skating (and does well when called on for that). As it is, the movie doesn’t tell us much we don’t know…while at the same time being about a bunch of stuff we don’t know.
Again: I didn’t dislike it. But I probably should have. Anyone else seen this joint?
Tags: All This Mayhem Ben Pappas Eddie Martin movies Tas Pappas that special breed of '90s foolishness
Even in Australia, I couldn’t track down this movie at a video store. Netflix?
I’d love to see this as my partner was part of the same scene at the same time, although not in that area. You might also enjoy Bra Boys which is about the surfie gang of Sydney, focusing on the Abberton brothers who founded it (warning: the movie was produced BY the Abbertons, therefore impartiality does not exist, but it’s an interesting look at the culture).
@cat: yes, Netflix streaming (I’ll start doing an availability link at the end of these posts). Let me know what you guys think! (Of the movie, not of my linking skills. hee.)
So we finally got ahold of this movie!
Really interesting look at the decade, and the scene, and the fact that these two brothers came out of nowhere to become #1 and #2 in the world. And they just could not pull their lives together.
I didn’t know the story well so it was truly devastating what happened to both Lynette and Ben. And as much as perspective as Tas seems to have gained on the whole scene, I just… cannot shake the feeling that he’ll be living in the past forever. I hope not, for his wife and child’s sake. I hope he makes it this time.
So glad someone else saw it! It was quite affecting not knowing anything about the story going in, I agree.