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THE DOORMAN
Edited & Directed by Wayne Price
Produced by Brian Devine, Jonathan Gray, Mevlut Akkaya, Lucas Akoskin & Price
Written by Price & Lucas Akoskin
Released by Released by Gigantic Releasing
USA. 76 min. Not Rated
With Lucas Akoskin, Peter Bogdanovich, Fabrizio Brienza, Thom Filicia & Matthew Mabe

Halfway through The Doorman, it occurred to me that the unimaginably goofy man-child featured in this classically executed “documentary” was, in fact, imagined. The bad news is that I may have been the only one to miss the sarcastic scent of a mockumentary from the very first farcical scene. The good news is that for those few glorious minutes when I thought Trevor W.—a hyper-metrosexual, self-obsessed nightclub doorman—truly walked the streets of New York City, I was bathed in giddiness and titillating disbelief.

My feeling like a duped guest on Da Ali G Show was accentuated by Trevor’s (Lucas Akoskin) uncanny resemblance to Bruno—the gay fashion-forward Austrian who rounds out Sasha Baron Cohen’s triumvirate of characters. Just switch the German accent for a Latin one, and you get the same foppish dandy with zero self-awareness and nothing but good intentions.

Being the doorman at some of the hottest nightclubs in the city, Trevor fancies himself a very powerful guy. He knows everyone, but, more importantly, he knows people who know him. This is one of the many nuggets of wisdom he shares with Wayne Price, the real-life director playing a director dying to make a film about this enigmatic, tall drink of water. Constantly clad in his documentarian uniform—parka, beard, and a big fuzzy boom mike—Price follows Trevor to star-studded events, late-night food binges, uproarious shopping trips (let’s just say Trevor has a penchant for cowboy hats), and endless kibitzing with real-life glitterati. 

Should Trevor’s antics get tiresome over the course of this 76-minute-long joke, the handful of amusing C-list celebrity cameos will still make the film worth your while. When Trevor fails to open the velvet rope for Nicholas Cage, he loses his doormanhood and sets out to find a new gig. Over lunch, Trevor tries to convince Sopranos psychiatrist Peter Bogdanovich that he’d make a perfect addition to Tony’s crew. The absurdity of Trevor’s wobbly profanity and chrome dome hairdo is lost on Bogdanovich, who plays the scene like a staid Hollywood honcho, spending the time kvetching about his diet and reminding the waiter that he doesn’t eat dairy. “I don’t eat dirty either,” Trevor chimes in, “but maybe we’ll order it if you clean it up.”

In light of the kooky subject matter, the sobriety of the filmmaking is impressive. The musical montages are engaging, the faux-interviews quite believable, and even sweet, preposterous Trevor never completely pushes reality out of reach. Yana Litovsky
July 18, 2008