Movie Review --- Party Monster
Normally when we hear Macaulay Culkin, we think of the stigamtized Home Alone kid or Richie Rich, so watching him play the egomaniacal, moral-less Michael Alig, it just looks silly. Party Monster is the tale of Michael Alig from the narrative of him (played by Culkin) and his friend James St. James (Seth Green), about how Michael arrived in New York City, met James and started the Party Kid club, the club where anyone who's felt like a reject can unite with others and have "the party that never ends."
Throughout the film, Michael and James constantly bicker about who should be doing the storytelling, which is kind of nice since it portrays the need of attention both men had (although it becomes very clear Michael was the bigger attention freak). Michael spots James at a club party and constantly follows him so he can learn how to be fabulous, but of course James doesn't want to do that. Still though, Alig asks question after question on how to live the way James does, and eventually tries to jump into the big leagues by working for Peter Gatien (Dylan McDermott), throwing parties to make profit for Gatien and skyrocket Michael's popularity.
Naturally with all the party business in NYC, Michael is introduced to lots and lots of drugs, to the point where he feeds his cat cocaine. His boyfriend Keoki (Wilmer Valderrama) and he constantly have fights over Michael's constant drug use, although Michael feels nothing is wrong and everything he's doing is fabulous.
Along comes a nearby drug dealer, Angel, who tries to fit in with the Club Kids, but pretty much only serves as their dealer and nothing more. Michael lets him live in his luxury condo, along with about 6 other people, and a fight breaks out when Michael asks for more drugs after taking all the drugs Angel gave them and not receiving any pay from Michael. Michael's friend Freez then jumps into the fight by hitting Angel in the head with a hammer, proceeded by the two stuffing him in the shower, injecting him with Draino since the hammer blows didn't kill him, cutting up the body and floating it down the river in a cardboard box.
Michael's fall from fame comes about after the murder of his dealer, when his lack of conscience shows when he brags about it to the people on the streets, speaking of it on TV, and even (this isn't shown in the movie, but I've researched it) writing "guilty" on his forehead to grab people's attention. Naturally the police came and arrested him.
There is a flat tone to this movie, and I'm not sure if it's bad direction or the simple real life portrayal of these people. When reading descriptions of the real life Club Kids, it seems as if they're ultra-charismatic, but some people say that they, especially Michael, were rather dull. That would make a lot more sense as to why Michael got onto so many people's nerves, having a dull guy drone on about how fabulous he is and constantly demanding more drugs and cash. The ending especially felt flat, mostly because all conclusions about the film are made a few scenes before the final scene, and it feels like there's nothing left to say, so it has to end.
The bigger question is was this a really good story for a movie? It seems that Alig's real life popularity today is for his nonchalant telling of killing his dealer, rather than the rise of the New York City party scene he started. I'll give the movie credit for trying to put equal emphasis on both parts of Alig's life, however it has the typical Hollywood flaw of only wanting to tell the really juicy, depressing story of Michael. And if this movie was really told from Michael's perspective, we might have learned more, but it was rather funny to see James and Michael argue over who narrarates the story. It was better than I expected, I'll have to say a C+ movie, I don't think it was telling everything it wanted to tell and too many characters that had a significant role in Michael's life were blacked out.