TONY HAWK: UNTIL THE WHEELS FALL OFF – a compelling portrait of a sporting superstar  

Less than a year after it made its inaugural run at the summer Olympics in Tokyo, it is perhaps more than a little fitting that we should now get the definitive story of skateboarding’s greatest superstar. Tony Hawk: Until The Wheels Fall Off, directed by Sam Jones, chronicles Hawk’s bumpy rise to fame – from a scrawny Californian teen, through his formative years with the Bones Brigade to the height of his powers during the sport’s biggest cultural and commercial renaissance in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It’s an intimate, sometimes unexpectedly honest portrait, unfurling not simply as a tale of one athlete’s pursuit of greatness, but as a picture of compulsion. Rather aptly, Jones’ film follows much the same trajectory as that of a skater during a halfpipe session. Charting the dizzying, gravity-defying highs as well as the crunching, bruising falls, Until The Wheels Fall Off mines some surprising depths as much as it scales in the lofty summit of Hawk’s success.

While there’s a thrill to basking in his drive to push beyond the limits of what most would consider possible – at the 1999 X Games, Hawk became the first skater to successfully land a ‘900’, a notoriously difficult trick many thought would never be achieved – the film is at its most intriguing when it instead examines the cost of such dedication. By his own admission, Hawk’s superstardom completely consumed him, his tunnel vision adversely impacting his role as both a husband and father. Fame, he reflects, is “the worst drug”. 

But at its core, the film asks why, at the age of 53 and with an extensive list of cuts, concussions and broken bones to his name, Hawk still feels compelled to take to the board several times a week. Like Bing Liu’s startling 2018 documentary Minding The Gap, the answers offered often transcend the sport entirely.

At times, the contemporary interviews with the grizzled gaggle of Hawk’s siblings and skateboarding peers ruminate on the spiritual liberation of the ride. (The rather on-the-nose use of the Buzzcocks’ Why Can’t I Touch It? coupled with the eloquent, softly-spoken wisdoms of pro skater Rodney Mullen serve to hammer home that point.) At others, however, as put by mentor figure and original Z-Boy Stacy Peralta, there are calls for an intervention for Hawk’s relentless self-pummelling. 

Such division in opinion makes for a well-rounded if occasionally overly sentimental film that often grinds the rail between compelling character study and shameless self-promotion. Until The Wheels Fall Off is flawed yet fascinating – much like the subject at its centre. 

Dir: Sam Jones (135 mins)

Available to stream on NOW TV

words GEORGE NASH