After being drafted for World War III, a group of burnout skateboarders are recruited into a casualty notification unit. “Vertical Valor,” directed by Alex Kavutskiy, takes an inspired premise and pumps it full of dopiness and absurdity, a war comedy that never hits the battlefield. Calvin and Bartholomew are two L.A. stoners with the unenviable task of informing military families of their recently deceased loved ones. That the skateboarders bungle the job should be assumed but these two go above and beyond the call of duty. Perfectly half-baked, the film sets its inappropriately casual attitudes and sick skateboarding footage to the tune of, you know, some general patriotic scoring. We’ve featured Kavutskiy several times before (see link below) and he’s in fine form here with the help of some repeat offenders, particularly the on-screen lunacy of Jon Millstein and Clay Tatum. -KA. Writer, director: Alex Kavutskiy. Cast: Jon Millstein, Clay Tatum, Andrew Michaan, Zach Zdziebko, Nathan Graham Smith, DeMorge Brown, Chelsea Morgan. Director of Photography: Moses Goldfarb. Editor: Jerzy Rose. Composer: Jason Martin Castillo.

Directed by Alex Kavutskiy: https://www.nobudge.com/directed-by-alex-kavutskiy