HBO's Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off captures the skateboarding icon in a very rudimentary way

RogerEbert.com

The HBO documentary from director Sam Jones "has its own edges softened by the straightforward style," says Nick Allen. "It becomes like a lot of glory days docs, in that it looks back on a certain phenomenon with a collection of amazed words from everyone who was there, but doesn’t feel as fast-energy by its storytelling methods. It’s exciting to learn about Hawk’s origins, and the traits that led to such a stand-out career, and yet it’s telling when this sports maverick's tale is being told about in a fairly rudimentary way." Allen adds: "Jones’ film has a reverence for Hawk but does not let that turn his piece into hagiography—the skateboarder is given time to mention the things he did not excel at in his personal life due in large part to his focus on skateboarding. He talks about fame being 'the worst drug,' and it’s interesting to hear words on that from such an unlikely celebrity. But true to the doc's superficial tendencies, its ability to dissect larger subjects only goes so deep. And when the documentary tries to go deeper on the toll of skateboarding on aging bodies, for Hawk and his peers, those final notes are too stretched out to be poignant."

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• Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off is a reckoning of passion told by those who best understand the price of that love story: The documentary is "a fully-fledged journey through the athlete’s hopes, dreams, fears, obstacles and reflections," says Lex Briscuso. "The film relies on the typical documentary stylings—never-before-seen archival footage, photographs and new first-hand interviews with the subject and others important to his story—but it’s a major asset to this film even if the tactic might seem tired in others. Despite knowing my fair share about early skate culture, especially in the ‘70s and ‘80s when it was really discovering itself and what it would become, the typical docu-methods used in this film felt less stale and overused to me than they might have without a prodigal story to build on."
• Tony Hawk can be a withholding interview subject: "There are mentions of his tumultuous personal life, including his struggles with infidelity and his regrets as a father, but Wikipedia can ultimately tell you more about Hawk’s past marriages than this documentary can," says Lena Wilson. "That’s not a knock against Hawk. He has a complex relationship to notoriety and seems sympathetically uncomfortable in the role of documentary subject. Even in middle age, his characteristically sunken eyes adorned with wrinkles and his floppy hair streaked with gray, it’s difficult not to associate the aloof Hawk with joyful, childlike recklessness."
• Until the Wheels Fall Off delves deep into skateboarding, but not how it affects Hawk's personal life: "If there’s an area where Until the Wheels Falls Off, well, falls off, it’s in doing deeper into the life of Hawk," says Ross Bonaime. "Jones captures plenty about Hawk’s early days, the relationship between his parents both then and now, and includes several interviews with Hawk’s brothers and sisters to give a wider look at who Hawk is. But Jones mostly avoids exploring Hawk’s troubles once he became a massive star, touring sold-out arenas and helping create some of the most popular video games of the time. Hawk slightly touches on how tough success was for him and his children, but beyond what little Hawk, his oldest son, and his current wife have to say about living with Hawk, Jones mostly lets these topics lie."
• For better or worse, Until the Wheels Fall Off best captures the real Hawk only when he is skateboarding
• Until the Wheels Fall Off demonstrates how many of Hawk’s contemporaries on the skateboarding scene are awed and baffled and quietly frightened by his exploits
• Director Sam Jones and Tony Hawk discuss Until the Wheels Fall Off: “I’ve never seen a more incredible person on a skateboard,” says Jones, who first met Haawk in 1983. “I also recognized parts of myself in this skinny, undeveloped kid who was picked on and who sort of had to make his own gang of people and do his own thing because he wasn’t readily accepted into the social groups and the cliques… That was me, too.”