Roll Bounce

This movie was great, absolutely fantastic. Having been born in the 80’s, I caught the tail-end of the rollerskating craze and remember many a party at SouthSide Superskate, the local rollerskate establishment. We all stood around the sidelines in awe of those “cool guys” who brought their own flashy skates and could, get this, skate backwards! The skating gods of Roll Bounce receive similar adoration from their fans, although they could do much more than a simple backward skating move. I suggest that you see this movie while you have the chance, it was extremely fun to watch.

Yes, it’s true, L’il Bow Wow is the star of the film, but before you dismiss him in a post ”Like Mike”-hating frenzy, I assure you that he has matured into a respectable actor. He stars as Xavier, aka X, and he and his neighborhood buddies are the hotshots of the local skating rink in 1970’s south side Chicago. Unfortunately, their beloved rink has closed its doors forever, so they are forced to go uptown to the Sweetwater Rink, which is lorded over by the Sweetwater Rollers with Sweetness (Wesley Jonathan) as their leader. Apparently Sweetness is something of a local celebrity what with his supercool skating moves and partially unbuttoned shirt, and he makes grand, sweeping entrances to his own theme music. His entourage talks some smack to X and his friends, and the boys quickly realize that they are a little out of their league compared to the matching outfits and perfectly choreographed skating maneuvers put on by the Sweetwater Rollers. L’il Bow Wow will have none of that, however, so he and his friends start practicing for the upcoming skate-off in the hopes that they can dislodge Sweetness and his crew from the throne of skating deity.

The only problem with the movie is that it is somewhat unfocused and has a second storyline involving X’s inability to move on past his mother’s fairly recent death. This isn’t necessarily a bad storyline, but it didn’t completely mix with the rollerskating aspect and caused the movie to drag a bit in parts. There weren’t very many scenes of the boys practicing their skating routines, so I can only assume that the filmmakers used this father/son drama in order to fill time and maybe even add depth to the characters. My favorite scenes in the movie, however, apart from the rollerskating ones, were the typical summer days spent with the boys. X gets harassed by the local trashmen (a very funny performance from Mike Epps as usual), he delivers newspapers by purposefully throwing them at people’s heads, and he is ambushed by overzealous neighborhood kids wielding an extensive arsenal of water balloons. He and his buddies, along with the girl-next-door Tori (Jurnee Smollett) constantly talk smack to each other and play Atari while drinking out of retro Pepsi cans. The scenes with Sweetness and his crew were equally funny to watch, and I swear I heard the original melodies of almost every single Puff Daddy/BIG/Snoop/Tupac rap remix during the skating routines, which were extremely well choreographed. I could have done without the father/son bit, although that storyline did have its moments as well.

The ending was very reasonable, and I was left feeling quite satisfied with the film. It was lighthearted and innocent, with good acting and dialogue, as well as extremely entertaining 70’s roller disco scenes. This is a movie that I will definitely buy on DVD, and I strongly recommend that you don’t wait that long to see it.