Just in time for the early-summer thaw comes Shaft, a 45-minute wakeboard video “incident” that features some of the top riders in wakeboarding, both on and off the water. You may have seen parts of this video already: You know, the one with Shaun and Parks dressed up like Beastie Boys’-style undercover cops a la “Sabotage” video. Well, the cops are back with more riders playing undercover including Darin, Brannan, Tara, the Heaneys and more. It almost seems as though way more time was spent making the “cops” scenes than actually filming the riding.
Shot entirely on 16-mm film, Shaft has a smooth, fluid look. It was filmed on location in Oregon, northern California and Florida, providing a variety of backdrops. Although it boasts a long list of riders, it mainly features Necrason, Murray, Shapiro, Bonifay, Lavelle, Johnson and Siebring with a cameo by Randy Harris and a nice introduction to Shawn Watson.
I really enjoyed the opening segment of Reggs, which is probably one of his strongest on video going huge on spins, crows, elephants, double grabs and more. Darin holds down the only “two-part” segment with a ton of strong riding and stylish grabs. Once again, he seems to be the only one to stick something new on film. This time it’s his stalefish front to blind. Shaun ends the movie with a stylish mix of solid grabs, spins and mobes, including the 313 and his ultra-tweaked nose grab back roll, which bends so much is looks almost like an oriental. He also gets heavy props for nearly landing a 900. Other standouts include Parks’ endless mobes and his attempt at an S-bend to blind and Randy Harris’ massive slob 720.
To mix things up in the middle, they throw in a cool skateboarding section that features Bob Burnquist, Steve Caballero, Serge Ventura and others, along with a nod to kiteboarding with some high-flying scenes in Maui with Lou Wainman.
Some things I didn’t like in this video were that the action sections (outside the cop-chase scenes) all seemed to be in slow motion. A little slow motion is cool to check out a move, but when overdone, it can be tiring. I was also puzzled to see a lot of riders doing easy moves without much style and missing grabs. And you’re kinda left wondering at the end where everybody else was (as in who you don’t see in Shaft: Byerly, Gonzales, Wahlman, Cobe, Thomas and the like).
