Dogtown skateboarding in the late 1970s gets a raw, unpolished record here, shot on the streets and empty pools of Southern California as the sport shifts from sidewalk novelty to something closer to an underground movement. Stacy Keach narrates over footage of the era's defining riders, including Tony Alva, Stacy Peralta, and Jay Adams, who also appear in interviews talking about how they ride and why. Director Peter Pilafian's camera stays close to the boards, catching vert runs down drained pools, freestyle tricks on flat ground, and the wipeouts that came with both. The film doesn't clean up the scene for a general audience: the fashion, music, and attitude of the period are left in as found, and the skating looks improvised rather than choreographed. There's little narrative arc beyond following these kids through their days on wheels, but as a document of the moment just before skateboarding became a commercial sport, the footage itself is the record, showing a style of riding that hadn't yet been standardized or packaged.