Review: The Doorman

I know people but, more importantly, I know people who know me,” says Trevor (Lucas Akoskin) in Wayne Price’s The Doorman. The line is heady, but it’s never put to good use in this insufferable mockumentary experience. For a good stretch of its paltry running time, the film convincingly plays the part of a legit documentary, with Price hanging from Price’s shoulder as the NYC doorman works his magic at Crobar and Fashion Week. The idea that a person like Trevor, who’s only talent is coordinating colors, can achieve the renown of someone like, say, Paris Hilton isn’t exactly implausible—at least not to anyone who was around when Rudy Giuliani’s quality-of-life rampage turned the city’s edgy nightlife into an almost obscene glamorama. Sussing credible performances out of people like Bungalow 8 owner Amy Sacco, Price succeeds at pulling the wool over the audience’s eyes, but what does Doorman have to offer besides selling us on the possibility that a character like Trevor is liable to exist? If largely painless and pointless when giving off the impression that it may actually be for real, Doorman becomes intolerable once an actual plot surfaces and Trevor loses his job at the now defunct Crobar. This is how the film reveals its hand as a Borat wannabe, except Trevor, whose vaguely queer—“metrosexual” is how one taking head begrudgingly calls him, perhaps sensing the word is terribly passé—and whose accent (like the quick pit stop he makes in Miami) suggests he might have Cuban roots, doesn’t lob any cherry bombs at establishments big or small, or anyone’s fears and complacencies for that matter. Mostly he’s an embarrassment to himself, and Price seems to want nothing from us other than to marvel and laugh at the pathetic but doubtful sight of Trevor working the door at a dive bar and, later, a restaurant bathroom. Jesus, Bruno is so going to blow this guy out of the water.