Twelve

Twelve

Directed by Joel Schumacher

Runtime: 93 min.

Joel Schumacher’s talent exceeds his ambition in Twelve. Instead of making a meaningful tragedy about modern pampered youth, he’s simply updated his 19 80s hit St. Elmo’s Fire (a multi-cast story of friendship and betrayal) and followup hit The Lost Boys (self-explanatory, replacing the occult with social-commentary and drugs, money, race and sex).

Adapting a novel by Nick McDonnell, Schumacher uses the literary device of voice-over narration by his Flatliners star Kiefer Sutherland, who introduces the protagonist: “White Mike is thin and pale like smoke.” But again, Schumacher’s talent—showing Chace Crawford as White Mike in bed in his skivvies like an Abercrombie & Fitch layout—bests the literary pretense. McDonell’s story about White Mike selling dope to Upper East Side New York scions without ambitions seems to rip-off the Gossip Girl TV show and both the novel and film Less Than Zero. That’s because it doesn’t have the authenticity or emotional persuasion of Jonathan Levine’s fine, moving white pot-dealing romance The Wackness. The deep thought here: “It’s all about The Want”—a profundity that, at best, prepares us for next weekend’s release, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

Schumacher’s drift toward fancy melodrama has an equivalent glossiness. Not Vincente Minnelli-level, Schumacher can be entertainingly, photogenically superficial—which is why his B-movies Sparkle, D.C. Cab and Phone Booth are his most enjoyable work. This illustrator’s skill results in a suitable showcase for Crawford, who has the bushiest eyebrows and thickest lashes in male pin-up history and acts shyness and resolve reminiscent of Alan Ladd. Schumacher also lavishes attention on the baby tramps played by