All This Mayhem

Tas and Ben Pappas grew up in a poor part of Melbourne. They taught themselves to skate, went to America as teenagers, and by the mid-1990s were the best vert skaters in the world. In 1998 Tas was ranked first and Ben second. They were the opposite of the clean, sponsor-friendly image of the professional athlete and they carried that as an attitude. Then came the drugs. Eddie Martin's documentary does not separate the rise from the fall; it shows them as parts of the same thing. The narrative rests largely on video the brothers shot themselves, combined with Tas telling it now. The story ends badly. Ben died in Melbourne in 2007 at twenty-eight, and before his death he committed a murder. The film does not avoid saying so. Who it's for: Viewers of sports documentary, skate culture, and narratives of collapse. Who it's not for: Drugs, violence and death are dealt with directly. The narrative runs from Tas's point of view and the place given to the victims stays limited.