Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (2022) Review

Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (2022)

Until the Wheels Fall Off is a documentary charting the unlikely beginnings, meteoric rise, and life of Tony Hawk on his way to the top of the skateboarding world. 

Growing up, I was heavily influenced by the first generation of Tony Hawk games. It would lead to my love of skating and even set me on my path to taking up the sport myself. So, to say Tony Hawk has had a huge influence on my life up to this point would be selling short. Thus Until the Wheels Fall Off would really hit this sweet spot in charting his life from the early Bones Brigade days with Stacy Peralta of Zephyr fame, to his crazy rise and subsequent struggles during the “dark ages”, and back around to the next big wave that would result in his ruling of the skating world and finally hitting the 900 at the X-Games. His story is so vast. One of determination, passion, and just the inability to back down from something he considered possible, which in the world of skateboarding, he would prove time and time again that anything was. 

If anything, this documentary almost works as a perfect sequel to the Dogtown and Z-Boys documentary from 2001, because without that, there would likely be no Tony Hawk. His story is so engrained with the best skateboarders of all time and as we see, that made him one of the most competitive skaters to touch a vert ramp. I loved all of the stories, the honest moments of struggle and heartbreak, and just the passion and vulnerability not only Tony, but people like Rodney Mullen and Lance Mountain exhibit in telling their tales. 

The documentary also boats a ton of great interviews, featuring the likes of his brother Steve, as well as tons of skaters and notable Bones Brigade members like Rodney Mullen, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, Mike McGill, Stacy Peralta, and of course, Hawk himself. It was really interesting hearing things from Peralta and Mullen’s perspectives, as Peralta was such a trailblazer and student of the game, barely an adult himself before putting together the Bones team, and Rodney has just always had a poetic way with words when speaking about skateboarding and Tony as a whole. 

Until the Wheels Fall Off, directed by Sam Jones, is such a fantastic, all encompassing look at one of the most revered figures in skate history, showing and really going in depth into what made Tony such a successful athlete when all the odds were against him. 

9.7/10