P: I liked watching a bunch of hooligans be hooligans. It was a very genuine portrayal.
K: Great movie. Showed many different and often contrasting perspectives. The big surprise of the whole story is that. What’s his name? The white dude with the kid? Zack. Dude I’m really bad at names. The big surprise is that he turns out to abuse his girlfriend. And I think the story did a good job of spending the first portion making you fall in love with him a little bit. Yeah.
P: Yeah, I think the parallels between Nina and Bing’s mom showed how prevalent that experience is in their worlds.
There wasn’t a climax or structured plot, but the movie did a really good job of making you empathize with each person. Even the people who did objectively shitty things all had their own demons and good intentions. I feel like they’re all trying to figure out how to be good people, but they don’t know how because all their examples are people who mistreated them.
K: Yeah, I think it made real a lot of struggles that I’m fortunate enough to not have be a part of my life. I think that it’s a really good movie for people who have nostalgia about their childhoods. I wasn’t a skateboarder in a poor Midwestern neighborhood, but it was still a very relatable story of just hanging out and being – you know – teenage goofs. And I think that’s something that’s universal.
P: I was entertained by their really bad jokes – just dumb shit that teenagers say. Like them laughing together about a YouTube video, and Keire’s “I’m black I can’t swim.” And there are all these super cool shots of them skateboarding and doing awesome tricks.
K: I loved this film’s approach to time. Not many documentarians grew up with their subjects and have been filming the whole time. It gives all the people in it a lot more depth than what a single project could encompass.
P: Yeah, I was curious about their relationships now, because it seems like they’ve all drifted apart a bit. Even during filming, it seems like their relationships change. And now with them all far apart, I wonder how their friendships are evolving.
K: I think it left open a lot of questions and created a desire to learn more about them. Sort of voyeuristic. I want to consume more of their lives.
P: I think you’ve seen them fuck up over the course of this documentary and it ends with them seeming like they’ve made the right decisions for now. Nina and Elliot have their own place and Nina is working towards a career goal, Keire got out of Rockford (to the promised land of Denver), Zack is paying child support. I wonder, are Zack and Nina going to reconnect? Is Keire gonna come back home? What about Bing? I want to know more.
K: I think, overall, it has everything that I value in a documentary. It has a very personal connection to me; it makes me nostalgic about hooliganing around as a teen. It has very sharp edges to it that give the story many dimensions. It paints the characters in truth without judgment. 9.5/10.
P: There are all these shocking things that are downplayed because they’re normal in their lives. Like the domestic violence, the child abuse. It humanizes people that are often stereotyped, like the alcoholic roofer beating his wife or the young waitress supporting a family. But instead of solely tying them together through all these traumas, it instead ties them together through this passion – this really positive thing. 8.5/10
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