I've never been on a skateboard in my life, and I've never had any desire to. Neverless, I do see the skill involved with the sport, and after seeing how "Skateboard Madness" portrayed skateboarding as an exhilarating sport even to someone as disinterested in the sport as I am, I though that "Freewheelin'" would provide some of the same satisfaction. After all, one of the skaters in that movie - Stacy Peralta - appears here as well.
Unfortunately, what I liked in "Skateboard Madness" is almost completely missing here. It's incredible how boring the sport is presented here - most of the skateboarding footage consists just of people speeding down hills, or going up the sides of empty pools or water pipes in slow motion. Wow, great excitement! (Sarcasm). There is no passion, no love for the sport displayed by the participants or by the people behind the camera - that's what made "Skateboard Madness" work.
As well, there is a problem with when the skateboarders get to talk. I was looking forward to this, because this is one thing that S.M. didn't do, and I really wanted to hear what the people of this sport had to say about their passion. Unfortunately, they come across just like the typical cliche of skateboarders - a bunch of "Awesome, dude!" kind of long-haired youth who blab about what "exciting" technique they did in terms that the ordinary person would not be able to understand. They also seem to eat, breath, and sleep skateboarding, which kind of makes them one-note, without any distinct personalities. Except maybe for Stacy Peralta - he comes across as an arrogant, egomaniac-like jerk. In fairness, quite a bit of this comes from the scripted sequences, where he commanded by the script to do things like drop out of school, neglect his girlfriend, etc.
You'd be better off looking at "Skateboard Madness". Though that movie is hard to find, it's a lot better, and certainly easier to find than this nearly-impossible-to-find obscurity.