For New Jersey youth in the ’70s and ’80s, visiting (and surviving) Action Park was a rite of passage. The sprawling combination of water park, motor park and general bacchanal was the brainchild of Gene Mulvihill, a disgraced former penny-stock pusher who counted the cash as his park became a rule-free stew of dangerous rides, teen guests, teen employees, raging hormones, ’80s-style machismo and booze. The HBO Max original documentary “Class Action Park” (one of the park’s winking nicknames; Traction Park was another) attempts a tricky balancing act, reveling in the hedonism of the attraction while treating the consequences of that hedonism with appropriate gravitas. The directors Chris Charles Scott and Seth Porges sneak the viewer behind the turnstiles by deploying John Hodgman’s wry narration, giddily kitschy archival materials and interviews with park employees, celebrity patrons and journalists. Scott and Porges spend a fair amount of their running time on a detailed walk-through of the rides (many of them designed by “people on the fringes” of the industry) and their various corresponding dangers and injuries — as well as the shamelessly shady business practices of its owner.

Source: New York Times September 01, 2020 20:26 UTC