Sydney Film Festival Review: 54 (Director's Cut)

54 starring then 23-year-old
Ryan Phillippe

Almost as much time has passed since Mark Christopher's 54 first came out as the amount of time that expired between the movie's initial release and the actual era it depicts.  I remember being rather excited for the movie, having been a fan of the recent Boogie Nights as well as The Last Days of Disco.  I had cut out an advertisement and pasted it in my journal in anticipation.  Then, the critics butchered it and the film kind of flopped at the box-office.  I was so dejected that I lost all desire to see it.  So, the director's cut was my first exposure to the feature length.  And, like Boogie Nights, it starts off as a wide-eyed celebration of sexual gratification and drugs that is eventually crippled by its own excess. But, unlike Nights, the film itself suffers a similar fate from a script that is unable to prop up its story.  What we are treated to now was a director's cut, so I can only imagine that the original studio cut had to have been pretty bad.

The template isn't anything new.  A 23-year-old Ryan Phillippe plays a young lunk not unlike Tony Manero.  He's from Jersey, and hungers for something more in life.  His desire gets him across Manhattan city limits and his only assets (his ripped body and angelic looks) get him across the velvet rope to the notorious lair of Steve Rubell (Mike Myers).  His genetics set him up with friends in high and low places and take him to the center of it all, but too much of a good thing, and little talent to take him further than his ambition will allow drags him back to reality.  But, Shane O'Shea isn't much of a three-dimensional character, in his heart, or as viewed through the prism of the screenwriter.  He more or less acts as a sponge and absorbs the energy of his chosen venue.

Within the confines of the club, Christopher most definitely captures the extravagance of the times.  The soundtrack and costumes help recreate a semblance of the glitzy ongoing party.  There's a beautifully hushed shot of Phillippe entering the club alone for the first time where it's the calm before the porn.  Just as he was a Jersey boy venturing over to the city, he was now going to briefly soon become part of a echelon few had access to as some kind of chosen one.  However, whether because of budget limits or whatever else, I never felt like he was hitting the big time, outside of the club.  And there are other distractions to hold the story back.  There is an element of a sexual identity crisis that lacks any special follow through.  The development between Shane and the woman he pines after most, soap star Julie Black (Neve Campbell), is nonexistent, and the movie strangely believes the audience won't notice that neither lead can mask this flaw armed without any chemistry.

What this film can't achieve in earnest, it does somewhat make up for in some campy fun (both unintentional and otherwise).  There are some pretty fun and loose lines, some of them delivered by Sela Ward ("he fucked me unconscious" and "let's take some photos before the ambulance arrives" among them).  She's a hoot and a holler, almost as much as Ellen Albertini Dow as Disco Dottie (having had a banner year in 1998 with her work in The Wedding Singer, she died a month ago).  Even Heather Matarazzo as Phillippe's sister adds her trademark charm.  Best in show would be Meyers, however.  While he doesn't have any arc, really, his Rubell isn't like anything I've seen him in.  His voice is a combination of Christopher Walken's staccato and Fran Drescher's afterthought of a laugh in The Nanny.  He looms around his establishment in a carefree manner, whether you're not sure if he's lecherous or just an innocuous voyeur.  He leaves you wanting to know more about him, though, you're left wondering if there was really anything beyond the surface, much like the movie.