To Karchy Jonas (Brad Renfro), a high school senior and Hungarian immigrant growing up in the 1960s, the American Dream appears to be pretty simple: it’s all about wealth, looking attractive to beautiful women, and getting to drive a red Cadillac. Who better to shatter the illusion than Billy Magic (Kevin Bacon), a Cleveland DJ who seems to have everything, but turns out to be little more than pomp and false appearances.

Telling Lies in America, actually written by Joe Eszterhas, sounds like the type of story Barry Levinson might write. Nominated for two best screenplay Oscars, Levinson can create memorable characters affected by the disappointments and small surprises of life. In 1990, he showed us the American Dream through the eyes of an immigrant family in Avalon. Several years later, he captured four adolescents’ rude awakening to the real world in the coming-of-age drama Sleepers.

Who better to combine the two types of films than a screenwriter as skilled as Levinson? Someone seems to think Eszterhas could pull it off.

A four-time worst screenplay Razzie nominee, Eszterhas is clearly a screenwriter who can make a fast buck writing sleaze, but is worthy of suspicion when it comes to more serious films. He is best known for his detailed explorations of carnal desire in such notorious wastes of film stock as Showgirls, Sliver, Jade and Basic Instinct. Lies is obviously not quite his cup of tea. Nevertheless, after 15 years on the back burner, Eszterhas’ semi-autobiographical account of his experiences growing up as a immigrant in America has finally made it to the screen.

Rest assured, you can forget about ice picks and femme fatales in Lies, an interesting though ultimately mediocre portrait of innocence lost.

Eszterhas entertains us with amusing anecdotes, but the story that weaves the incidents together is flawed. What the film needs is the Levinson touch. Lies has the potential to be a charming character study, but it is laden by underdeveloped cliches from other similar films.

Nestled beneath the surface of the film is the payola scandal, which eventually erupts and becomes its centerpiece. Billy Magic augments his income by taking bribes in exchange for airplay, and Karchy acts as his middleman (protected from the law by his young age). Karchy idolizes Billy Magic and dreams of becoming a DJ himself, but his Hungarian accent is an obstacle (he can’t pronounce the word “the” without making it sound like “da”). Billy Magic preys on Karchy’s hopes by superficially making his dreams come true. Karchy ultimately hopes to impress his friends and win the affections of Diney (Calista Flockhart, TV’s Ally McBeal) by emulating Billy’s mannerisms.

Kevin Bacon is accustomed to playing complex characters like Billy Magic, and the role suits him perfectly. With his easy-going drawl and an expression that constantly appears on the verge of winking, Bacon captures the magnetism of Billy Magic. His performance adds a dimension to the character created in Eszterhas’s script.

Brad Renfro, on the other hand, comes across as clunky as he tries to capture the hesitant nature of a teenager who’s never quite sure of himself. His acting is garishly amateur alongside Bacon’s attention-stealing appearances. Supposedly, Karchy is a professional liar, but his fibs are so obvious that no one would mistake them for the truth. Renfro spends most of the film looking bewildered when the story calls for more complex reactions.

Instead of rounding out the story, other characters are little more than poor stereotypes. Karchy’s father (Maximilian Schell) sacrificed a teaching career in Hungary for the promises of America, yet he seems content sitting around the house doing nothing. The Catholic priest who runs Karchy’s school might as well be Satan as depicted, even though he is the only one who really seems concerned about Karchy’s future. Both of these characters are as central to Karchy’s life as Billy Magic, though the movie never bothers to concentrate a satisfying portion of the story on either of them.

To his credit, Eszterhas fleshes out the story with unique adolescent mishaps. For instance, Karchy pours an entire vial of Spanish Fly in Diney’s drink in hopes of getting lucky, only to see his plan backfire. Eszterhas obviously has good ideas for the film, though the end result needs to be more sincere if it hopes to compete with superior films like Avalon and Sleepers. Since Lies is far more impressive than his other movies, I hate to suggest that Eszterhas should stick to sleazy homicidal-sex-fiend scripts. However, the film would undeniably have benefited from a revision by another writer.