The Donald's Elevator Ride to the Top

All those who are dying to know more about Donald Trump, please wave a $50 bill in the air. . . . Hmm -- what's this, no takers? Okay, how about waving a 20? . . . A 10? . . . A quarter?

A white handkerchief of surrender?

Donald Trump, among others, has made sure we know more than enough about the Manhattan tycoon's self-made success and self-publicized life, so a movie with the title "Trump Unauthorized" hardly sounds like the sure-fire treat of the year. Its implicit promise of scandalous poop isn't kept, either; Trump is shown to be cold, ruthless and megalomaniacal at times, but that shouldn't shock anyone.

It hardly makes him unique among big-time entrepreneurs, or a contemptible skunk of the Enron stripe.

ABC's film, at 9 tonight on Channel 7, tries hard not to plug Trump's NBC series "The Apprentice," and to stay on the safe side, ABC scheduled it for the week after that show came to its season's end. The film ends with Trump coming out of a slump and being pitched the series by a man we can presume to be producer Mark Burnett. The title isn't even mentioned in the dialogue; Burnett says he hasn't thought of one yet, just a concept.

But he doesn't like firing people, Trump protests. Somehow he managed to change his tune on that.

The film opens, meanwhile, with a prefatory vignette from the Donald's toddlerhood; he proudly spells out his full name in alphabet blocks. It would have been more revealing if he'd put "CEO" after it, or maybe "Mr." in front of it.

Quickly the child grows up to be the man with the gravity-defying haircut, played capably by Justin Louis. Although Trump's life has been marked by a certain flamboyance, his manner, at least in public, has almost always been cool and detached, almost a walking blank, so it's not an easy part to play. Louis makes the unmagnetic magnate about as intriguing as any actor could. Most of the excitement is in the world of glamour that swirls around him, with Trump the proverbial smooth operator at the relatively calm center.

It's not a rags-to-riches story, either, as a film about, say, Ted Turner would be. Trump's father, Fred (Ron McLarty), is a successful businessman himself. In addition to business tips along the way, Daddy advises Sonny-boy during his extramarital affair with Marla Maples. "Don't fool around with only one woman," he says. His other warning is simple and to the point: "Don't get caught" in flagrante delicto.

The hottest scene in the picture is a pushing-and-shouting match at a ski resort between the then-Mrs. Trump, Ivana (Katheryn Winnick), and tag-along mistress Maples (Jennifer Baxter). "Stay a-vay from my hoos-bund!" Ivana shouts. Winnick brings a subtle sense of humor to the role -- or maybe she just looks as though she's going to bust out laughing at any moment -- but this viewer had trouble understanding her dialogue through the thick accent, except for the occasional word like "veen-doze" (windows).

There is, indeed, drama in Trump's life beyond the parts that have made yummy headlines in the New York Post. Trump's older brother, Fred Jr., eclipsed and ignored, becomes an alcoholic partly because he feels like "a dolphin born into a family of sharks." His death seems to jolt the Donald in a way that nothing else does. He shows no emotion, however, when three business associates die in a helicopter crash. One was his longtime lawyer, Peter Wennik, played with welcome style and energy by Saul Rubinek. Trump and Wennik had previously parted company.

Their farewell lunch, a scene or two earlier, reveals Trump at his most insufferable. He is "no one's husband and no one's partner," Trump trumpets, and he actually has the hubris to declare, "I'm American royalty." When he tells Wennik to "either change the world with me or go away," the lawyer gets up from the table -- and goes away. Lucky Trump has Marla to comfort him with such sentiments as, "I love you. You're my sweet little boy."

At a memorial service for the executives, Trump says, "We must ensure that they will never be forgotten. I intend on doing just that." Is the shaggy syntax perhaps intentional? It sounds as if Trump is saying he intends to forget them. And it's suggested he already has. If he were the first coldblooded, small-hearted businessman in the world, this might be news, but nothing could be further from the you-know-what.

And speaking of the truth, during their brief meeting, Trump expresses skepticism to Burnett about doing a TV show and Burnett says, "If you're not on TV, you're nothing. You don't exist." One would think Trump already shared that view, based on his insistent visibility up to that point. Burnett also says, "This isn't real life, Mr. Trump. This is reality." That's probably the shrewdest line in the movie.

Otherwise, we're shown lots of burnished gold fixtures and luxurious, gauche surroundings and long white limos and long red carpets. The movie is neither an insult to its subject nor an encomium. It's just two hours of Trump tripe, easily forgotten even as the closing credits roll.

Trump Unauthorized (two hours) airs tonight at 9 on Channel 7.