54
SYNOPSIS:
Shane O'Shea (Ryan Phillippe) is 19 and bored by the local nightlife in New Jersey. He
ends up standing outside Studio 54, trying to get in. The club's owner, Steve Rubell (Mike
Myers), is taken by the young man's good looks and waves him through. Soon Shane joins the
ranks of bare-chested busboys working under the strobe lights. He makes friends with a
coworker, Greg (Brecklin Meyer), who is married to a coat-check girl and would-be singer,
Anita (Salma Hayek). Meanwhile, Shane's favouritism by Rubell and a prominent socialite
(Sela Ward) puts him on the fast track. It's not long before he is promoted from busboy to
bartender, and gets all the women and drugs he wants. He has set his sights on a soap
opera actress, Julie Black (Neve Campbell), whom he has long admired from afar.
"It's no surprise that this mostly fascinating drama received such mixed reviews.
As a recently history lesson, it's more fantasy than history, an idealised interpretation
of an era that was excessively self-indulgent, even downright silly. 54 is an intoxicating
look at a few years of utter garishness. Though the film has certain annoyances and silly
plot contrivances, it remains a surprising entertaining and biting funny look at the
period, and the club that personified all that was wrong with the late seventies and early
eighties. Writer/director Mark Christopher has a far better visual eye than he does a
sense of character, and cinematically, 54 is stunning. As well as his attention to period
detail, his scenes in the club are intoxicating, as they so deftly define the garishness
of that whole scene. His sense of character is less interesting, offering a sketchy
account of these strangely idiosyncratic people, and the central character, Shane, is very
thin on the ground, played with bland indifference by newcomer Ryan Phillippe. On the
acting front, real honours go first to Mike Myers, who gives a superb, indomitable and
complex performance as the often drugged-out Steve Rubell, while Salma Hayek is both
breathtaking to watch and emotionally resonant as aspiring singer Anita (and she does her
own singing which is great). Though short on historical accuracy and well-defined
character, 54 is an entertaining reminder of how facile the disco era really was, and what
clubs such as 54, really represented."
Paul Fischer
"It's not hard to understand why filmmakers should have an interest in the 1970's. The glitter, the absolute excess, the high camp, and the fact it ended so abruptly make it an ideal vehicle for stories. Set in one of THE icons of the '70's, 54 seeks to capture the essence of those times. It has some good things going for it - dazzling camera work, outstanding costumes and one brilliant performance. But it has three big things going against it. They're called Saturday Night Fever, Boogie Nights and The Last Days of Disco. The script takes the themes of the first two films and basically welds them onto the plotline of the third. The result isn't as good as any of them; and 54 ends up being a film with very little new to say. It is redeemed to an extent by the wonderful work of Mike Meyers in the central role; but he tends to accentuate the shortcomings of some of the other players. Ryan Phillippe is convincing at first as the ingenuous youth from Jersey looking to make it big in 'the city'; but he never loses that quality, even though it's clearly called for in the script. Salma Hayek, Neve Campbell and Breckin Meyer try hard, but in the end, they're essentially window dressing. 54 isn't original or even very insightful; but it's wonderful to look at, and is worth seeing if only for the performance of Meyers."
David Edwards
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CRITICAL COUNT
Favourable: 1
Unfavourable: 0
Mixed: 1
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SOFCOM MOVIE TIMES
54 (M)
(US)
CAST: Ryan Phillippe, Salma Hayek, Brecklin Meyer, Mike Myers, Neve Campbell,
Sela Ward, Heather Matarazzo, Ellen Albertini Dow
DIRECTOR: Mark Christopher
PRODUCER: Ira Deutchman, Richard Gladstein, Dolly Hall
SCRIPT: Mark Christopher
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alexander Gruszinsky
EDITOR: Lee Percy
MUSIC: Marco Beltrami
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Kevin Thompson
RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes
AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow
AUSTRALIAN RELEASE: November 12, 1998
VIDEO RELEASE: October 11, 1999
VIDEO DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Home Entertainment
RRP: $24.95
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