Director Wayne Price's The Doorman

A A A Comments By Michelle Orange Wednesday, Jul 16 2008

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The Doorman
Directed by Wayne Price
Gigantic Releasing
Opens July 18, Village East

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In The Doorman, director Wayne Price uses documentary techniques, including a pitch meeting with his actual producer, to suggest that his study of Trevor (Lucas Akoskin), a doorman whose gigs at the world's hottest clubs have brought him micro-celebrity status, is too good not to be true. And for a while, you might believe it: The parade of ladies pushing boobs and busses in his face in the hopes of getting past the velvet rope seems depressingly authentic, and then there's Trevor himself, a sharp-dressed wag—as metrosexual, apparently, as a bag of rainbows—who gets a warm greeting from Padma Lakshmi and testimonials from club owners like Amy Sacco. About halfway through, though, Trevor's exploits (ecstatically deluded and on a power bender, he alienates his employers and is summarily exiled from the glamorous life) go from hard-to-follow to hard-to-want-to. Price moves from disturbing believability to lame laugh grabs, setting his satirical agenda off-kilter. Not until the goofy closing credits does the film hit its tonal stride and nail what could have been its saving, salient theme: the absurd lines that fancy people draw (and obey) to make themselves feel special on a Saturday night.

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