A gangly, unruly tale that attempts to spin the success stories of Kiss, Donna Summer and record industry executive Neil Bogart into one confounding narrative, "Spinning Gold" is a tangled mess of a movie, a tribute act masquerading as the real deal.
It's a fanciful tale that is gassed up on its own would-be whimsy, a movie where the narrator himself can't stop talking about what an unbelievable story he's telling. And frankly, it is unbelievable — not because of the stories being told, which are the stuff of record industry legend, but because of the amateur execution of the filmmaking, which constantly creates a distance between storyteller and story.
Broadway vet Jeremy Jordan ("Rock of Ages") plays Bogart, a blue-collar kid from Brooklyn who went on to head up Casablanca Records, the 1970s indie label that eventually came to be home to some of the decade's biggest superstars. Emphasis on eventually, because their success came slowly, and the label bled millions of dollars before finally striking it rich.
Jordan's Bogart narrates the story as well, often breaking the fourth wall to address the audience and embellishing elements of his own tale. The upshot is Casablanca wanted to make a big splash but repeatedly fell on its face, as its roster of artists struggled to find their groove.
Chief among them is Kiss, and shoehorning the story of the legendary rock act into a larger story about its record label is an act of hubris Bogart himself might not have even attempted. Elsewhere, Wiz Khalifa plays George Clinton, Sebastian Maniscalco plays Giorgio Moroder, Ledisi plays Gladys Knight and Jason Derulo plays Ron Isley, none of the performances substantial enough to register beyond the nature of their own stunt castings.
Summer — she's played by Tayla Parx — is given the most room to breathe, and there's a campy element to the staging of the studio session where she records "Love to Love You Baby" where the movie starts to have some fun with itself. But too often its hampered by its cheap-looking design elements (lighting, sets, costuming), and it comes off feeling like a Lifetime movie or a VH1 original, rather than a true big screen production.
"Spinning Gold" is written, directed and produced by Timothy Scott Bogart, Neil's son, so it makes sense why the story's grimier elements are left by the wayside. This is a shrine to his father (who died in 1982 at age 39), but as such it becomes a tale of sex, drugs and rock and roll, which mostly glosses over all three. It's a music tale without a pulse, without rhythm. And most tragically, given its subject, without soul.
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'SPINNING GOLD'
Grade: D
Rated: R (for pervasive language, drug use, some sexual material and nudity)
Running time: 2:17
How to watch: In theaters Friday
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