54

• Starring Mike Myers, Ryan Phillippe, and Salma Hayek
• Directed by Mark Christopher
• Rated R, with profanity, drug use and sex
• Running time 93 minutes
• Jack gives this film a rating of 5 out of 10

By Jack Garner
Democrat and Chronicle

(Aug. 28, 1998) -- Call it Boogie Nights -- Lite.

Sure, the new disco-era drama 54 is about a famous '70s disco club in Manhattan, while Boogie Nights was about the '70s porno industry.

But the story's much the same: A young guy with limited prospects trades on his good looks to achieve success -- of sorts -- in a decadent world of easy sex, abundant drugs and shallow dreams.

The look is the same, too: clinging polyester, tight bellbottoms, glitter, spangles and platform heels, all lit by raking lights reflected from a spinning mirrored ball.

And the music's the same: the relentlessly bland beat of disco, the low point in the panorama of American music.

I'll be honest -- I can't get nostalgic about disco. If a disco movie is going to get to me, it'll have to offer more than fond remembrances.

54 does, but just barely.

The film details the story of Manhattan's hottest spot in the late '70s, Studio 54, a ballroom in a former broadcast center at 54th Street and Eighth Avenue. It was operated by free-wheeling, Brooklyn-born entrepreneur Steve Rubell, wonderfully played here by funnyman Mike Myers, of Austin Powers fame.

To tell the tale, writer-director Mark Christopher focuses on three employes on the low rungs of the 54 ladder. They're busboys Shane and Greg (Ryan Phillippe and Breckin Meyer), whose idea of the big time is to be promoted to bartender, and Greg's wife, Anita, a steamy coat-check girl (Salma Hayek) who dreams of being disco's next Donna Summer.

54 is narrated by Shane, a Brooklyn teenager who sees the club as salvation from his dysfunctional family. He gets a sexy, curled hair cut, an open-to-the-navel shirt and talks his way into a job.

Once at 54, he impresses Rubell with his eagerness -- and hunky looks. Shane soon is seduced by the lifestyle -- the celebrities, the glitz, the quickie sex with beautiful women, the piles of money -- until Studio 54 collapses under the weight of its excesses, and the IRS raids Rubell's out-of-control books.

But Christopher fails to give 54 a point of view. Just when he seems ready to condemn the scene as a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, he waxes nostalgic for the days when Truman Capote and Princess Grace hit the dance floor with the beautiful people.

He also teases us with too few tantalizing glimpses of Steve Rubell, a narcissistic hustler who rockets to the top of the disco world and collapses just as fast.

For Rubell, your entree to Studio 54 was his personal gift -- if he felt you were worthy. "Welcome to my party," he tells Shane when the boy first passes muster at the door.

We watch Rubell flirt with some employes and cruelly chastise others. We observe the droopy, moody aftermath of his drug excesses. We cringe as he offers jobs for oral sex. We're amazed at how blithely he ignores warnings that the IRS is about to close him down.

But we never really understand who he is, where he came from or how he got there. A film with more daring, more edge, would have put Steve Rubell -- and Mike Myers -- on center stage, instead of the busboys and a coat-check girl.