# 54 (1998)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

    54
    (Miramax)
    Starring:  Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek, Breckin Meyer, Mike Myers, Neve
    Campbell.
    Screenplay:  Mark Christopher.
    Producers:  Richard N. Gladstein, Dolly Hall and Ira Deutchman.
    Director:  Mark Christopher.
    MPAA Rating:  R (profanity, nudity, sexual situations, drug use, adult
    themes).
    Running Time:  91 minutes.
    Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

Mike Myers transforms himself in 54, in virtually every way a performer can transform himself. Myers plays Steve Rubell, the nightclub impresario who created the Manhattan disco to be the center of the party universe in the closing years of the 1970s. Rubell presides over his kingdom in a heavy-lidded barbiturate stupor, wheezing a forced monotone cackle as he moves among his glitterati guests. In his first truly dramatic screen performance, Myers is still recognizable with his open-mouthed little boy grin, but here he uses it to create an overgrown little boy convinced he can only find friends by throwing the coolest party. Wearing Izod shirts and sweaters, thinning hair perched pointlessly on top of his head, Rubell is a proto-Gates portrait of entrepreneurial geekdom. If people won't play with him because they like him, he'll make them play with him because they need him.

Rubell is a fascinating character, performed by Myers with a mix of savvy, pathos and self-absorption. If writer/director Mark Christopher had had the common sense to make 54 the story of Steve Rubell, he might have created a great film. Instead, he makes his protagonist a New Jersey kid named Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe) who comes to Manhattan in 1979 to break away from his dead-end family. He first manages to catch Rubell's eye and gain entry into the club, then lands a job as a busboy, eventually moving up the Studio 54 social ladder to bartender. Along the way he befriends another busboy named Greg (CLUELESS's Breckin Meyer) and Greg's wife, aspiring disco diva Anita (Salma Hayek). He also becomes infatuated with Julie Black (Neve Campbell), a soap opera ingenue whose Jersey-to-the-big-time success story inspired him to action.

54's base-line narrative is so trite it almost plays like a parody, a disco-era goof on MIDNIGHT COWBOY or some far less seminal corruption of the innocent melodrama. Naturally, the fame and flash go immediately to Shane's head as he poses for modeling shoots and buys a Camaro with personalized plates; naturally, he is lured into a sordid world of sex, drugs and money; naturally, he begins to alienate his friends and family. Christopher heads down every obvious path in the interactions between Shane, Greg, Anita and Julie, apparently oblivious to the fact that every one of those characters is a piece of cardboard. Perhaps it was his idea of irony: like Studio 54 itself, his movie invites people in so they can stand around and be attractive.

The plotting and pacing are so relentlessly predictable that the film doesn't even work well as a sociology lesson. Occasionally it offers peeks at the side rooms or basement hot spots where the elite meet to revel in their elite-ness; occasionally it focuses on the politics of succeeding in an environment of glamour for glamour's sake. Shane's voice-over narration dutifully informs us why Studio 54 was so unique and popular, but there's never enough energy for us to believe him or care. 54 spends 91 minutes pointing off-handedly at this or that detail like a bored tour guide. For a film that includes money-laundering, ripping off the mob, sex, drugs, celebrities and plenty of boogie oogie oogie-ing, it almost never gets the pulse racing.

The notable exceptions are the scenes involving Myers as Rubell. Sure, the character isn't perfectly realized; in fact, it probably seems better simply because it's surrounded by so much uninspired junk. There is something undeniably intriguing about Rubell, however, as his king of the playground glee mingles with self-destructive anxiety and paranoia. It's also amusing watching him tell a talk show host "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom" after we've seen him lying in a pile of money, drooling vomit. There's a great story in that unhappy collection of contradictions, but you won't find it amidst the smothering cliches of Mark Christopher's script. With all the stranger-than-fiction truth at his disposal, he somehow found the least interesting approach possible. Steve Rubell would have been disgusted to see Studio 54 turned into something so...mundane.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 disco balls:  4.

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