In the 1990s, Australian brothers Tas and Ben Pappas tore through the world of professional skateboarding like twin tornadoes.
They were self-professed maniacs, a pair of take-no-prisoners pariahs who invaded the U.S. and a sport they viewed as soft. Their revolutionary styles, go-for-broke(n bones) attitudes and high-profile feuds with stars like Tony Hawk made them the most famous outlaws in an era when skating was starting to go mainstream, but their brash attitudes also earned them plenty of enemies, and foreshadowed their precipitous fall.
Now, the Pappas remarkable story is being told in All This Mayhem, a new documentary produced by Vice Films, and distributed in the U.S. by FilmBuff, the company behind films like Exit Through The Gift Shop and Senna. Utilizing hours of footage shot throughout the brothers lives, and interviews with other legendary skateboarding stars, the film chronicles the Pappas brothers meteoric rise to number one and two in the world and the heartbreaking personal and professional story that ensued soon after.
Beginning with their working-class roots in Melbourne and documenting all manner of darkness drugs, death and depression All This Mayhem follows two rebels who rode hard and lived even harder, and the impact they had on the sport.
Today, Rolling Stone is premiering an exclusive trailer for the film. All This Mayhem will be in theaters, and available for digital download, on September 9.