54 (1998) A Film Review by Ted Prigge Copyright 1998 Ted Prigge
Writer/Director: Mark Christopher Starring: Ryan Phllippe, Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer, Mike Myers, Neve Campbell, Sela Ward, Heather Matarazzo, Sherry Stringfield, Ellen Albertini Dow, Lauren Hutton, Michael York, Jared Haris, Art Garfunkel, Peter Bogdonovich
Studio 54 attracted so many weird and bizarre people to its gates that it's a wonder why the film about the life and death of the Studio centers itself on one very boring, cliched individual, not to mention an ensemble of people who wouldn't be at all fascinating unless they worked at the Studio, which they did according to this film. Are we supposed to believe that out of all the strange folk who populated the Studio nightly, that a character who is a bland ripoff of Tony Manero would really make a good protagonist for the film about it?
"54" belongs in the elite group of films known as "The Big Disappointments": the films that attain so much hype and/or so much potential in its creation that they come off worse than they are when they are finally finished. I was heavily awaiting "54," not the least because I've become fascinated with the infamous club, which has been the subject of an engrossing documentary that's been running all summer on VH1, which is, weirdly enough, much more intriguing and engrossing than this "edgy" film.
Perhaps more importantly, "54" is part of the blossoming subgenre, "The 70s Nostalgia Film," which has been picking up mighty steam, what with "Boogie Nights" and "The Last Days of Disco" coming out within the year, and both being such damn good movies that not only captured the feel of a certain time period (the late 70s party and the early 80s wakeup period), but brought us interesting and real characters, like Scotty, the tragically gay boom mike operator from "Boogie Nights," and Charlotte, the ironically clueless and bitchy co-protagonist from "The Last Days of Disco," not to mention several others.
"54" deals not so much with the timeline of the Studio (how it began, how it was run, how it ended) - that's all dealt with in the narrated opening and finale - but more interested in the characters who populated it. This is a definite plus. Here's a film that could have been a fascinating 2 hour plus film about the tragic people who went there to party, and had to wakeup in the 80s when things like diseases, economy problems, and perhaps worst of all, Reagan, all hit and forced everyone into a rude awakening. The story of the studio is tragedy in itself: let's look at how it all affected the people.
But this film doesn't let that happen. It gives us a half-assed protagonist named Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe, from "I Know What You Did Last Summer"), who's chief character trait is the fact that he's from New Jersey, which also happens to be his chief character flaw (I guess). He's dim-witted, into being part of "the scene," and soon finds he's become a bit of a rave amongst the Studio regulars...a bit like "Saturday Night Fever," 'cept no Travolta and no real interest put into him. Poor, poor Phillippe struggles to make him interesting, but all he is a half-assed character and not at all our ticket to the glimpse of the decadence going on inside the club that he could have been.
Shane begins to hang out with some other denizens of the club, like Anita (Salma Hayek), a wannabe Donna Sommers, and her young hubby, Greg Randanzo (Breckin Meyer, from "Clueless"), who helps Shane become a bartender and rise to a bit of fame. Although he begins to get somewhere when he sleeps with the foxy Billie Auster (Sela Ward), an exec of sorts, he falls in lust with a soap star named Julie Black (Neve Campbell), and thus the boring romance subplot that's all too not necessarily important to anything else in the film and never really becomes interesting at any point in the film.
The film's sole point of interest and one major strongpoint is the all-too necesary personage of Steve Rubell, played by Mike Myers (you heard me). Rubell, the famous head of the Studio acted as if he never stopped partying ever, and is an easy metaphor for the life and times of his creation, but the film, thanks to a surprisingly strong performance by Myers, makes him out to be more than that. Notice the scenes sole shocking scene, where he tries to get felatio from one of his male employees in turn for a promotion: Myers brings the humanity to Rubell in this scene, and a couple others, that some of us who've only seen him on TV never saw, and proves to be perhaps the one aspect of Studio 54 that this film actually nails.
First time feature director Mark Christopher proves that he's a better director than a writer, though not too terribly much. His story is trite and shallow, as are his characters, and his direction is shockingly flat, especially for a film about this subject. It's as if he had a great story to tell, but instead opted for the easier route. The Studio's recreation is amazingly accurate, though, and very impressive, but his direction is never captivating enough. Some people say that a film does its job if it makes you want to visit the locale it takes place in (despite the film's tone, I still want to go to Rome and its many nightclubs after I saw Fellini's "La Dolce Vita"), and when I watched "54," I didn't particularly want to stay.
MY RATING (out of 4): *1/2
Homepage at: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Hills/8335/
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