Susan Granger's review of "54" (Miramax Films)
This is the second movie about decadence of the late '70s era and, like Whit Stillman's "The Last Days of Disco," it never achieves what it sets out to accomplish. Written and directed by Mark Christopher, it's the story of a working-class kid (Ryan Phillippe) who escapes from the dingy reality of New Jersey by using his angelic looks, lithe body, and ingratiating personality to infiltrate the netherworld of Manhattan's night club scene. He's befriended by a groggy, drug-addled homosexual, Steve Rubell (Mike Myers), one of the owners of Studio 54, who hires him to be one of the bare-chested busboys, joining the other narcissistic wannabees at the nightly bacchanal. There's the coat-check girl (Salma Hayek) who wants to be a diva; her drug-peddling husband (Breckin Meyer), who wants to be a bartender; and the soap-opera actress (Neve Campbell) who wants to social-climb. Everyone wants to be rich and famous. No one wants to admit the truth. There's a sad, revealing exchange when Rubell bawls out one of his doormen for allowing some "yids" through the velvet rope and into the club. "But they were your family, Steve," the unfortunate employee explains. Where the film falls short, however, is in evoking the spectacle, the glamorous glitter, and the deafening musical excitement that epitomized the legendary Studio 54. It was filmed on a tiny sound stage in Toronto, and it shows. The characters, particularly the women, are woefully underwritten, and, since Ian Schrager, Rubell's real-life partner and a pivotal force at the club, refused to participate in this venture, there's an obvious gap in the quasi-historical narrative. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "54" is a sleazy, seedy 6, capturing only the deceptive energy of that hallucinogenic, cocaine-snorting era.
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