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| Party Monster |
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  (6/10)
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Runtime: 98 m |
| Public Rating: 7.79 (101 votes) |
Director: Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 2003 |
| Writer(s): Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato |
| Distributor: Strand Releasing |
| Reviewed by: Brian Andrews |
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This movie has a bad case of the ‘shoulda’s’. The movie ‘shoulda’ been more engrossing, the script ‘shoulda’ been more informative, the characters ‘shoulda’ been more involving, etc. “Party Monster” tells the story of uber-club kid Michael Alig (Macaulay Culkin) and his transformation from an eager, young innocent with dreams of being fabulous to a big city party boy, drug addict and convicted murderer of his drug dealer. The film is cleverly framed as a mock press junket for the book ’Disco Bloodbath,’ upon which this film is based, authored by James St. James (Seth Green - terrific!), Alig’s mentor-come-sidekick, We get a brief glimpse of Alig’s modest Midwestern upbringing as a sexually molested child, then it’s straight to New York City, where Michael befriends James, pleading with him to be his teacher and show him the way to fabulousness in NYC nightlife. Soon after James takes Michael under his wing, Michael begins to take the lead over from James as he weasels his way into a job promoting parties for NY nightlife impresario, Peter Gatien (Dylan McDermott), at famed church/nightclub, Limelight. Rather than desert the nightlife he helped create, James accepts his role as Michael’s sidekick, and the two, under Michael’s charismatic lead, pave the path for the club kids, kids that are famous just for being fabulous. Pretty soon, the drug taking spirals out of control, and the whole thing turns into a warped “Behind the Music” episode.
Which is a shame since Alig’s is an intriguing story. He really did create the whole club kid persona and turned it into a movement in the late 80’s, early 90’s New York City. There is such an atmosphere here that is only touched upon. The best scenes are in Limelight, where the music is loud and thumping and the costumes are indescribable! But even those scenes are not fantastic. I would’ve liked to have seen more going on in there. People dancing, doing drugs, being generally “bad” and giving me, the viewer, the feeling of what it was like to be there at that time. I feel like the movie sort of wimped out in a way by not going “all the way”. I mean, for all the sexual ambiguousness that was prevalent at the time among the club kids, this movie barely skims the surface when it comes to sex. When Michael and Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama), Michael’s hunky boy toy, have their first kiss in the dumpster(!), the camera immediately cuts away the moment they are about to lock lips. Maybe the filmmakers thought it would be exploitative for the two to kiss, but I think a tender kissing scene would have helped to develop the relationship between Michael and Keoki. As it is, I didn’t really get the feeling that the two were in love. I mean, there’s no hint of a personal connection between them that one would hope for with two people deeply in love. The movie has a glossy façade that hollows out a story that depends, to a great extent, on the characters involved. It’s also about a half-hour too short.
As for the rest of characters involved, Chloe Sevigny shows up about halfway through as an Alig-groupie who latches onto to Michael, Mia Kirshner has about two scenes as Gatien’s no-nonsense wife, Marilyn Manson is unrecognizable in drag, no easy feat for him, as a weirdo member of Alig’s clan. Dylan McDermott is appropriately slightly sleazy as Mr. Gatien, but, then again, his is another example of an undernourished character. We get the sense that Gatien liked Michael enough, but not in the father figure sense that the filmmakers would want us to believe. On the basis of this film, if I were Gatien, I would’ve told Michael to take a hike at the very beginning. Diana Scarwid is a bright spot in her couple of scenes as Michael’s mother.
The principle performers are fine. Macaulay Culkin returns to the screen, all grown up from his “Home Alone” days. He’s good, but not great. He plays Alig as a lost boy, masking his loneliness and despair under fabulous costumes, a charismatic persona, and lots of drugs. It’s a mature role and I’m glad to see him back in action. But he’s not the standout performance here as one would expect. It is actually Seth Green who steals the show. His James St. James is a study in flamboyant fabulousness. Green really seems to inhabit the character and gives him just enough of a comedic edge to keep him just this side of a typical comic relief character. Green overplays (good in this case) his friendship with Michael while understating James‘s true frustration with him. When Michael belittles James again and again, you get the feeling that it annoys James, but, since the two are kindred spirits of sorts, it glides away in the same way a remark from a brother or a sister does. I really enjoyed Seth Green in this picture. He did a fantastic job.
Mr. Bailey and Mr. Barbato direct the film with a smooth camera and a firm grasp of the era. Nightclub sequences are the best, with the thumping music and outrageous costumes. But even they feel hollow, watered down. The scenes in the nightclub are all too brief and bland. For all the craziness that went on at Limelight during this time, it sure ain’t evident here.
The film just ‘shoulda’ been “more”.
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